Multimodal characterization of putative pan-inhibitory viral constructs in macaque monkeys

DLX2.0/ChrimsonR and h56D/bReaChES viral constructs in seven rhesus macaques reliably target inhibitory neurons (81–97%) but show incomplete coverage (32–64%) across GABAergic subtypes.

• Why it matters: Quantitative validation of inhibitory viral toolboxes in non-human primates has lagged behind rodent work, limiting confidence in in vivo optotagging, modulation, and cell-type classification.
• What they did: They combined anesthetized in vivo electrophysiology, in vitro slice electrophysiology, and immunohistochemistry to assess specificity, completeness, and efficacy of three Dlx5-6 intergenic region–engineered constructs across multiple cortical areas.
• The result: Transgene expression was ~60–90% in parvalbumin-positive interneurons, ~1–7% in calbindin-positive interneurons, and near-avoided calretinin-positive interneurons; DLX2.0/ChrimsonR enabled strong in vivo optotagging and h56D/bReaChES best suppressed activity in vivo, while slice stimulation evoked inhibitory currents confirming transsynaptic functionality.

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