- Pekrun, Katja;
- De Alencastro, Gustavo;
- Luo, Qing-Jun;
- Liu, Jun;
- Kim, Youngjin;
- Nygaard, Sean;
- Galivo, Feorillo;
- Zhang, Feijie;
- Song, Ren;
- Tiffany, Matthew R;
- Xu, Jianpeng;
- Hebrok, Matthias;
- Grompe, Markus;
- Kay, Mark A
While gene transfer using recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vectors has shown success in some clinical trials, there remain many tissues that are not well transduced. Because of the recent success in reprogramming islet-derived cells into functional β cells in animal models, we constructed 2 highly complex barcoded replication competent capsid shuffled libraries and selected for high-transducing variants on primary human islets. We describe the generation of a chimeric AAV capsid (AAV-KP1) that facilitates transduction of primary human islet cells and human embryonic stem cell-derived β cells with up to 10-fold higher efficiency compared with previously studied best-in-class AAV vectors. Remarkably, this chimeric capsid also enabled transduction of both mouse and human hepatocytes at very high levels in a humanized chimeric mouse model, thus providing a versatile vector that has the potential to be used in both preclinical testing and human clinical trials for liver-based diseases and diabetes.