Effects of lentiviral delivery in different brain regions on transfection of rat dentate gyrus neurons

Objective To explore the effect of lentiviral delivery green fluorescent protein in different brain regions on the transfection of dentate gyrus neurons. Methods Lenti-pSyn-EGFP was stereotaxic injected into dentate gyrus (DG), Cornu Ammonis 1 (CA1) of hippocampus and medial entorhinal cortex (EC) of rats. All animals were perfused with 4% paraformaldehyde. Their brains were cut into 30 μm sections which were performed with Nissl fluorescent staining. Results The resuts showed that the GFP positive cells in DG area of DG, CA1, EC, DG-EC groups were (18.0±1.0), (17.0±0.6), (17.3±0.6), (18.3±0.6) respectively, and there was no statistical difference among each group(P>0.05). Conclusion Lentivirus delivery in EC and CA1 both can transfect DG neurons. This is a useful method to transfect dentate gyrus neurons instead of injecting lentivirus into DG directly and avoid the lesion of DG. Key words: Lentivirus; Dentate gyrus; Hippocampus; Medial entorhinal cortex