Mechanism of Reduction in Titers From Lentivirus Vectors Carrying Large Inserts in the 3′LTR

Self-inactivating (SIN) lentiviruses flanked by the 1.2-kb chicken hypersensitive site-4 (cHS4) insulator element provide consistent, improved expression of transgenes, but have significantly lower titers. The mechanism by which this occurs is unknown. Lengthening the lentiviral (LV) vector transgene cassette by an additional 1.2 kb by an internal cassette caused no further reduction in titers. However, when cHS4 sequences or inert DNA spacers of increasing size were placed in the 3'-long-terminal repeat (LTR), infectious titers decreased proportional to the length of the insert. The stage of vector life cycle affected by vectors carrying the large cHS4 3'LTR insert was compared to a control vector: there was no increase in read-through transcription with insertion of the 1.2-kb cHS4 in the 3'LTR. Equal amount of full-length viral mRNA was produced in packaging cells and viral assembly/packaging was unaffected, resulting in comparable amounts of intact vector particles produced by either vectors. However, LV vectors carrying cHS4 in the 3'LTR were inefficiently processed following target-cell entry, with reduced reverse transcription and integration efficiency, and hence lower transduction titers. Therefore, vectors with large insertions in the 3'LTR are transcribed and packaged efficiently, but the LTR insert hinders viral-RNA (vRNA) processing and transduction of target cells. These studies have important implications in design of integrating vectors.