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Assessing adenoviral hammerhead ribozyme and small hairpin RNA cassettes in neurons: Inhibition of endogenous caspase‐3 activity and protection from apoptotic cell death
Author(s) -
Bantounas Ioannis,
Glover Colin P.J.,
Kelly Stephen,
Iseki Sachiko,
Phylactou Leonidas A.,
Uney James B.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of neuroscience research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.72
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1097-4547
pISSN - 0360-4012
DOI - 10.1002/jnr.20389
Subject(s) - ribozyme , hammerhead ribozyme , biology , gene silencing , microbiology and biotechnology , small hairpin rna , mammalian cpeb3 ribozyme , rna interference , luciferase , rna , gene , transfection , biochemistry
Antisense technology, including ribozyme and small interfering RNA, is being developed to mediate the down‐regulation of specific intracellular genes. It was observed in this study that both antiluciferase ribozymes and short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) could significantly reduce the activity of exogenously expressed luciferase in primary hippocampal neurons in a viral titer‐dependent manner. shRNAs were more effective gene‐silencing agents than ribozymes, although they exhibited some nonspecific gene‐silencing effects at high viral titers. We also attempted to increase ribozyme efficacy by using a woodchuck hepatitis posttranscriptional regulatory element (WPRE) in the ribozyme expression cassette. The results showed that adenoviral vectors encoding specific ribozymes could silence the cellular expression of luciferase and endogenous procaspase‐3 significantly. Furthermore, the antiprocaspase‐3 ribozyme was shown to inhibit staurosporine‐mediated cell death. The addition of a WPRE did not, however, increase or decrease ribozyme activity. As far as we are aware, this is the first example of adenovirally mediated delivery of hammerhead ribozymes being used to manipulate gene expression in primary neurons. The results therefore suggest that hammerhead ribozymes may be useful tools for studying neuronal gene function and have potential as therapeutic agents to treat CNS diseases. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.