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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Avian Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1549585
This article is part of the Research Topic Rising Stars in Avian Physiology: 2024 View all 8 articles
AAV-mediated transduction of songbird retina
Provisionally accepted
Pranav Kumar Seth 1,2*
Dominik Heyers 1
Baladev Satish 1
Ezequiel Mendoza 3
Katrin Haase 1 Lisa Borowsky 1
Isabelle Musielak 1
Karl-Wilhelm Koch 1
Regina Feederle 4
Constance Scharff 3
Karin Dedek 1
Henrik Mouritsen 1*- 1 University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
- 2 University of Sussex, Brighton, West Sussex, United Kingdom
- 3 Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- 4 Institute of Diabetes and Obesity, Helmholtz Center München, Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (HZ), Neuherberg, Germany
Genetic manipulation of murine retinal tissue through ocular administration of adenoassociated viruses (AAVs) has become a standard technique to investigate a multitude of mechanisms underlying retinal physiology. Resultantly, developments of recombinant viral vectors with improved transduction efficiency and further methodological improvements have mostly focused on murine tissue, whereas AAVs successfully targeting avian retinae have remained scarce. Using a custom-designed injection setup, we identified a viral serotype with the capability to successfully induce widespread transduction of the bird retina. Intravitreal administration of an AAV type 2/9 encoding for enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) in night-migratory European robins (Erithacus rubecula) resulted in transduction coverages of up to 60% within retinal tissue. Subsequent immunohistochemical analyses revealed that the AAV2/9-EGFP serotype almost exclusively targeted photoreceptors: rods, various single cones (UV, blue, green, and red cones), and both (accessory and principal) members of double cones.The consistently high and photoreceptor-specific transduction efficiency makes the AAV2/9 serotype a powerful tool for carrying out genetic manipulations in avian retinal photoreceptors, thus opening a wealth of opportunities to investigate physiological aspects underlying retinal processing in birds, such as physiological recordings and/or post-transductional behavioural readouts for future vision-related research.
Keywords: AAV1, avian retina2, photoreceptors3, intravitreal injection4, European robin5, opsin6
Received: 21 Dec 2024; Accepted: 25 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Seth, Heyers, Satish, Mendoza, Haase, Borowsky, Musielak, Koch, Feederle, Scharff, Dedek and Mouritsen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Pranav Kumar Seth, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
Henrik Mouritsen, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
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