Heparan Sulfate Binding Promotes Accumulation of Intravitreally Delivered Adeno-associated Viral Vectors at the Retina for Enhanced Transduction but Weakly Influences Tropism.

Many adeno-associated virus (AAV) serotypes efficiently transduce the retina when delivered to the subretinal space but show limited success when delivered to the vitreous due to the inner limiting membrane (ILM). Subretinal delivery of AAV serotype 2 (AAV2) and its heparan sulfate (HS)-binding-deficient capsid led to similar expression, indicating transduction of the outer retina occurred by HS-independent mechanisms. However, intravitreal delivery of HS-ablated recombinant AAV2 (rAAV2) led to a 300-fold decrease in transduction compared to AAV2. Fluorescence in situ hybridization of AAV transgenes was used to identify differences in retinal trafficking and revealed that HS binding was responsible for AAV2 accumulation at the ILM. This mechanism was tested on human ex vivo retinas and showed similar accumulation with HS-binding AAV2 capsid only. To evaluate if HS binding could be applied to other AAV serotypes to enhance their transduction, AAV1 and AAV8 were modified to bind HS with a single-amino-acid mutation and tested in mice. Both HS-binding mutants of AAV1 and AAV8 had higher intravitreal transduction than their non-HS-binding parent capsid due to increased retinal accumulation. To understand the influence that HS binding has on tropism, chimeric AAV2 capsids with dual-glycan usage were tested intravitreally in mice. Compared to HS binding alone, these chimeric capsids displayed enhanced transduction that was correlated with a change in tropism. Taken together, these data indicate that HS binding serves to sequester AAV capsids from the vitreous to the ILM but does not influence retinal tropism. The enhanced retinal transduction of HS-binding capsids provides a rational design strategy for engineering capsids for intravitreal delivery.

IMPORTANCE: Adeno-associated virus (AAV) has become the vector of choice for viral gene transfer and has shown great promise in clinical trials. The need for development of an easy, less invasive injection route for ocular gene therapy is met by intravitreal delivery, but delivery of AAV by this route results in poor transduction outcomes. The inner limiting membrane (ILM) creates a barrier separating the vitreous and the retina. Binding of AAV to heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG) at the ILM may allow the virus to traverse this barrier for better retinal transduction. We show that HSPG binding is correlated with greater accumulation and penetration of AAV in the retina. We demonstrated that this accumulation is conserved across mouse and human retinas and that the addition of HSPG binding to other AAV capsids can increase the number of vectors accumulating at the ILM without dictating tropism.