Browsing by Author "Wang, Qizhao"

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    Minimal Essential Human Factor VIII Alterations Enhance Secretion and Gene Therapy Efficiency
    (Elsevier, 2020-10-22) Cao, Wenjing; Dong, Biao; Horling, Franziska; Firrman, Jenni A.; Lengler, Johannes; Klugmann, Matthias; de la Rosa, Maurus; Wu, Wenman; Wang, Qizhao; Wei, Hongying; Moore, Andrea R.; Roberts, Sean A.; Booth, Carmen J.; Hoellriegl, Werner; Li, Dong; Konkle, Barbara; Miao, Carol; Reipert, Birgit M.; Scheiflinger, Friedrich; Rottensteiner, Hanspeter; Xiao, Weidong; Pediatrics, School of Medicine
    One important limitation for achieving therapeutic expression of human factor VIII (FVIII) in hemophilia A gene therapy is inefficient secretion of the FVIII protein. Substitution of five amino acids in the A1 domain of human FVIII with the corresponding porcine FVIII residues generated a secretion-enhanced human FVIII variant termed B-domain-deleted (BDD)-FVIII-X5 that resulted in 8-fold higher FVIII activity levels in the supernatant of an in vitro cell-based assay system than seen with unmodified human BDD-FVIII. Analysis of purified recombinant BDD-FVIII-X5 and BDD-FVIII revealed similar specific activities for both proteins, indicating that the effect of the X5 alteration is confined to increased FVIII secretion. Intravenous delivery in FVIII-deficient mice of liver-targeted adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors designed to express BDD-FVIII-X5 or BDD-FVIII achieved substantially higher plasma FVIII activity levels for BDD-FVIII-X5, even when highly efficient codon-optimized F8 nucleotide sequences were employed. A comprehensive immunogenicity assessment using in vitro stimulation assays and various in vivo preclinical models of hemophilia A demonstrated that the BDD-FVIII-X5 variant does not exhibit an increased immunogenicity risk compared to BDD-FVIII. In conclusion, BDD-FVIII-X5 is an effective FVIII variant molecule that can be further developed for use in gene- and protein-based therapeutics for patients with hemophilia A.
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    Mouse γ-Synuclein Promoter-Mediated Gene Expression and Editing in Mammalian Retinal Ganglion Cells
    (SfN, 2020-05-13) Wang, Qizhao; Zhuang, Pei; Huang, Haoliang; Li, Liang; Liu, Liang; Webber, Hannah C.; Dalal, Roopa; Siew, Leonard; Fligor, Clarisse M.; Chang, Kun-Che; Nahmou, Michael; Kreymerman, Alexander; Sun, Yang; Meyer, Jason S.; Goldberg, Jeffrey Louis; Hu, Yang; Biology, School of Science
    Optic neuropathies are a group of optic nerve (ON) diseases caused by various insults including glaucoma, inflammation, ischemia, trauma, and genetic deficits, which are characterized by retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death and ON degeneration. An increasing number of genes involved in RGC intrinsic signaling have been found to be promising neural repair targets that can potentially be modulated directly by gene therapy, if we can achieve RGC specific gene targeting. To address this challenge, we first used adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated gene transfer to perform a low-throughput in vivo screening in both male and female mouse eyes and identified the mouse γ-synuclein (mSncg) promoter, which specifically and potently sustained transgene expression in mouse RGCs and also works in human RGCs. We further demonstrated that gene therapy that combines AAV-mSncg promoter with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 gene editing can knock down pro-degenerative genes in RGCs and provide effective neuroprotection in optic neuropathies.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Here, we present an RGC-specific promoter, mouse γ-synuclein (mSncg) promoter, and perform extensive characterization and proof-of-concept studies of mSncg promoter-mediated gene expression and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 gene editing in RGCs in vivo To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating in vivo neuroprotection of injured RGCs and optic nerve (ON) by AAV-mediated CRISPR/Cas9 inhibition of genes that are critical for neurodegeneration. It represents a powerful tool to achieve RGC-specific gene modulation, and also opens up a promising gene therapy strategy for optic neuropathies, the most common form of eye diseases that cause irreversible blindness.