Fig. 1

Construction and validation of H1 and H8 viruses in vitro. a The Trojan horse-like strategy of GOI amplification by HSV/AAV chimaera. AAV replicase expression cassette and ITR flanked GOI (gene of interest) cassette were inserted into H129 genome to construct the chimaera virus. The genome of the HSV chimaera enters the nucleus following infection of cells. With the assistance of HSV, the Rep replicase specifically recognizes GOI flanked by ITRs and replicates it, resulting in amplification of the copy numbers of the GOI. b Schematic of H1 and H8 genome. IRL and IRS indicate long and short inverted repeats, respectively. c Western blot validation of rep protein expression. H129, H1 and H8 infected BHK cells were detected using the anti-replicase antibody. d Single-step growth curves for H1 and H8 (each point represents the mean of triplicate assays). e Fluorescent protein expression level of H1 and H8 infected BHK cells at 24 h post infection, MOI = 5. Scale bar, 100 μm. f H8 showed significant higher DNA level of egfp than H1. g, h, i H8 showed significant higher protein level of GFP than H1. The genomes and proteins of H1 and H8 infected BHK cells were extracted 48 hpi