Adeno‐associated virus‐mediated gene transfer into human retinal pigment epithelium cells

Abstract
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is emerging as a promising vector for gene therapy To determine the ability of recombinant AAV (rAAV) to express and integrate exogenous DNA into human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, a rAAV-GFP vector containing the green fluorescent protein (gfp) and neomycin resistance (neo(r)) genes was constructed and used to transduce RPE 407A cell line. Fluorescent RPE cell clones were obtained and were confirmed to still be expressing GFP after 24 passages (3.5 months). Adeno-associated virus-based vectors are able to efficiently transduce and stably persist in RPE cells.