Directed Evolution of AAV Serotype 5 for Increased Hepatocyte Transduction and Retained Low Humoral Seroreactivity

Most recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids utilized in liver gene therapy have significant levels of pre-existing neutralizing antibodies in the human population. These neutralizing factors limit the patient pools eligible for receiving AAV-mediated therapies. AAV serotype 5 (AAV5) does not face the same barrier of humoral immunity as most AAV serotypes due to its low seroprevalence. However, AAV5 can only facilitate a low level of transgene expression in the liver, constraining its application to a small number of liver diseases. To improve the liver transduction of AAV5 while retaining its low seroprevalence, we constructed a library of AAV5 mutants via random mutagenesis and screened in Huh7 cells. Two molecularly evolved AAV5 variants, MV50 and MV53, demonstrated significantly increased transduction efficiency in Huh7 cells (∼12×) and primary human hepatocytes (∼10×). All variants had retained low seroreactivity toward pooled human immunoglobulin G (IgG) when compared to AAV5, which was significantly less seroreactive than AAV9. Functional characterization of the mutants also revealed insights into the functions of various domains, especially the VR-I, in the AAV5 capsid. The result is AAV5 variant capsids with much enhanced human hepatocyte transduction, potentially useful for liver-directed gene therapy.