Cytokine stimulation and the choice of promoter are critical factors for the efficient transduction of mouse T cells with HIV-1 vectors

Background HIV-1 fails to successfully infect mouse T cells as a result of several blocks in the viral replication cycle. We investigated whether this also impacted on the use of HIV-1 derived lentiviral vectors for stable gene transfer into mouse T cells. Methods Freshly isolated primary mouse T cells were immediately mixed with lentiviral vectors encoding an enhanced green fluorescent protein marker gene and transduction frequency was determined after 5 days of culture. Results Optimal transduction required both mouse T cell activation and cytokine support. Furthermore, transduction was also dependent upon the promoter chosen, with the rank order of potency being PGK > EF1 > SFFV > CMV. HIV-1 lentiviral vectors also efficiently transduced cytokine-stimulated T cells (in the absence of antibody driven T cell activation), albeit with a lower level of transgene expression compared to fully-activated T cells. Conclusions The present study demonstrates that primary mouse T cells can be efficiently transduced with HIV-1 lentiviral vectors, opening up prospects for their use in mouse models of gene-modified adoptive cellular therapy. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.