Inhibition of CGAS-Mediated Interferon Response Facilitates Transgene Expression

Overview

Journal iScience

Publisher Cell Press

Date 2020 Apr 14

PMID 32283527

Citations 13

Authors

Yajuan Fu

Yijun Fang

Zhang Lin

Lei Yang

Liqun Zheng

Hao Hu

Tingting Yu

Baoting Huang

Suxing Chen

Hanze Wang

Shan Xu

Wei Bao

Qi Chen

Lijun Sun

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

DNA transfection is often the bottleneck of research and gene therapy practices. To explore the mechanism regulating transgene expression, we investigated the role of the cGAS-STING signaling pathway, which induces type-I interferons in response to DNA. We confirmed that deletion of cGAS enhances transgene expression at the protein level by ~2- to 3-fold. This enhancement is inversely correlated with the expression of interferons and interferon stimulated genes (ISGs), which suppress expression of transfected genes at the mRNA level. Mechanistically, DNA transfection activates the cGAS-STING pathway and induces the expression of the OAS family proteins, leading to the activation of RNaseL and degradation of mRNA derived from transgenes. Administration of chemical inhibitors that block cGAS-mediated signaling cascades improves the expression of transgenes by ~1.5- to 3-fold in multiple cell lines and primary cells, including T cells. These data suggest that targeting the cGAS-STING pathway can improve transgene expression, and this strategy may be applied to gene therapy.

Citing Articles

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