Figure 3.

Remarkable murine liver infectivity of AAVzk2 in male mice

(A) Male C57BL/6 mice were injected via tail vein with the indicated AAVs that carry cis-element cassette encoding GFP at the dose of 1 × 10¹³ vg/kg, and liver, heart, lung, spleen, and kidney were subjected to GFP (green) and DAPI (blue) immunostaining 21 days post-viral injection. Scale bar, 200 μm. (B–E) Quantification of AAV tropism in liver relative to heart (B), lung (C), spleen (D), and kidney (E), which was referred to as the ratio of GFP-positive liver cells versus GFP-positive heart, lung, spleen, and kidney cells based on DAPI spots number. n = 5 mice per group. ∗∗∗p < 0.001, One-way ANOVA. (F) Male C57BL/6 mice were intravenously injected with 5 × 10¹³ vg/kg, the indicated AAVs encoding GFP, and whole-brain sagittal sections were stained for GFP (green) and DAPI (blue) 21 days post-viral injection. Scale bar, 1 mm. (G) Quantification of GFP-positive cells in the brain in (F), n = 5 mice per group. ∗∗∗p = 0.0003, unpaired t test.