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Published April 15, 2006 | public
Journal Article

Generation of lentiviral transgenic rats expressing Glutamate Receptor Interacting Protein 1 (GRIP1) in brain, spinal cord and testis

Abstract

In neuroscience, rats have several advantages over mice as a model organism. For instance, behavioral experiments are more advanced and the larger size of the brain is better suited for surgical manipulation and biochemistry. Furthermore, the vascular physiology of rats is considered closer to human, providing clinical relevance. Because transgenesis rates achieved by conventional pronuclear injection are extremely low (0.2–3.5%), the availability of transgenic rats in neuroscience is limited. Lentivirus infection is an efficient way to integrate exogenous genes into the genome of a one-cell embryo to generate transgenic animals. We report here the generation of synapsin I promoter driven GRIP1-transgenic rats using lentiviral transgenesis. GRIP1 was chosen as a transgene because it interacts with AMPA receptors and is involved in glutamate receptor signaling. From a single infection experiment, 45% of the offspring carried the transgene and 40% achieved germ-line transmission. The expression of GRIP1 was observed at low levels in brain, spinal cord and testis. Interestingly, one transgenic copy lacked a 147 bp fragment in the GRIP1 coding region most likely caused by alternative splicing of genomic lentiviral RNA. Co-immunoprecipitation from rat brains showed that transgenic GRIP1 is in complex with the endogenous GluR2 subunit of AMPA receptors. These results indicate that functional transgenic GRIP1 protein is expressed in rat brain using lentiviral vectors containing a human synapsin I promoter. Tissue specific lentiviral transgenic rats will be a powerful tool for various applications in modern neuroscience.

Additional Information

© 2005 Elsevier B.V. Received 28 June 2005, Revised 23 July 2005, Accepted 3 August 2005, Available online 12 September 2005. We thank Professor Susumu Tonegawa for support and the Department of Comparative Medicine (Bob Marini, Susan Eldman and Alison Hayward) for technical help. C.C.H is recipient of long term fellowship from International Human Frontier Science Program Organization and supported by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). M.S. is investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023