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Research methods in psychiatry
Viral vectors as a novel tool for clinical and neuropsychiatric research applications
  1. Yao Wang1,2,
  2. Zhiwei Hu2,
  3. Peijun Ju3,
  4. Shan Yin1,2,
  5. Fujie Wang1,2,
  6. Oudong Pan2 and
  7. Jinghong Chen3
  1. 1 Research and development department, OBiO Technology (Shanghai) Corp., Ltd., Shanghai, China
  2. 2 Marketing department, OBiO Technology (Shanghai) Corp., Ltd., Shanghai, China
  3. 3 Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai, China
  1. Correspondence to Yao Wang; wyao{at}obiosh.com; Jinghong Chen; chenjh_008{at}hotmail.com

Abstract

Background A viral vector is a genetically modified vector produced by genetic engineering. As pathogenic genes in the virus are completely or largely eliminated, it is safe to be widely used in multidisciplinary research fields for expressing genes, such as neuroscience, metabolism, oncology and so on. Neuroscience and psychiatry are the most closely related disciplines in either basic research or clinical research, but the application of viral vectors in neuropsychiatry has not received much attention or not been widely accepted.

Objective This article will focus on the application of viral vectors in basic and clinical neuropsychiatric research.

Methods By using viral vectors, scientists can perform neurological labelling, gene expression regulation and physiological manipulation for investigating phenomenon from molecular mechanisms to behaviours. At the same time, to treat mental or neurological disorders, viral vectors can be designed for gene therapy, which alter gene expression levels or repair mutated genes in the brains of patients.

Perspective Viral vectors play an important role in basic research and clinical applications. To further understand brain function and prevent mental and neurological diseases, we hypothesize that viral vectors could be used along with various advanced technologies, such as sequencing and high-throughput expression analysis in the neuroscience research field.

  • viral vector
  • tracing neural circuits
  • gene manipulation
  • optogenetics
  • gene therapy

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0

https://doi.org/10.1136/gpsych-2018-000015

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors YW and JC completed the conception, data collection and classification of this article, and wrote and polished the full text. ZH conducted the drawing of the full-text chart. SY conducted the text collation and the writing of the gene therapy part. OP and FW improved the colour and provided suggestions for improvement and practical experience. PJ and JC conducted proof reading and revision of the full text.

    • Funding This work was co-supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81571326, 81501153).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement No additional data are available.