ADENOVIRAL VECTORS AS FUNCTIONAL RETROGRADE NEURONAL TRACERS

Adenoviruses have been recently recognized as a highly efficient syste m for gene delivery to various tissues. The ability of replication-def ective recombinant adenovirus to transfer the lacZ reporter gene encod ing beta-galactosidase to nerve cells in various brain structures has been demonstrated. Here, on the continuation of these studies, we pres ent evidence that the adenovirus can be transported in a retrograde ma nner to nerve cell bodies from axonal terminals. This method may be of great value for infecting selected subsets of specific neurons for ei ther anatomo-functional studies or even therapeutic purposes.