A tyrosine hydroxylase-neurofilament chimeric promoter enhances long-term expression in rat forebrain neurons from helper virus-free HSV-1 vectors.

Helper virus-free herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) plasmid vectors are attractive for neural gene transfer, but a promoter that supports neuronal-specific, long-term expression is required. Although expression from many promoters is unstable, a 6.8-kb, but not a 766-bp, fragment of the tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) promoter supports long-term expression. Thus, 5' upstream sequences in this promoter may enhance expression. In this study, we evaluated expression from vectors that contain 5' upstream sequences from this promoter (-0.5 to -6.8 kb) inserted at the 5' end of either a neurofilament heavy subunit (NF-H) promoter or the cytomegalovirus (CMV) immediate early promoter. The TH-NFH promoter supported expression for 6 months in the striatum, 2 months in the hippocampus, and for 1 month in both perirhinal and postrhinal cortex (the longest time points examined). Expression was targeted to neurons. The enhanced expression may require specific sequences in the TH promoter fragment because replacing this fragment with a similar sized fragment of bacteriophage lambda DNA did not enhance expression. The reverse orientation of the TH promoter fragment also enhanced expression. Insertion of insulators from the chicken beta-globin locus between the TH-NFHlac transcription unit and the vector backbone may support a modest additional enhancement in expression. Other eucaryotic sequences may also enhance expression; a S. cerevisiae (40-kb fragment)-NFH promoter enhanced expression. In contrast, the TH-CMV promoter did not enhance expression. Thus, the TH-NFH promoter may support some physiological studies that require long-term expression in forebrain neurons.