Nectow, A.R. et al. Cell Rep. 19, 655–667 (2017).

Some cell types cannot be easily dissociated from their tissue contexts, making it difficult to determine their molecular profiles. The translating ribosome affinity purification (TRAP) method provides one way to profile nascent translation from a targeted cell type. In the mouse, TRAP consists of a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) that expresses EGFP-tagged ribosome protein L10a from a chosen promoter, allowing the recovery of cell-type-specific polysome-bound mRNAs from whole-tissue homogenates. Nectow et al. now make TRAP more flexible by dropping the requirement for BAC-engineered mouse strains. The researchers generated Cre-dependent adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors that express EGFPL10a, which can be used to infect into any mouse strain expressing a cell-type-specific Cre driver. As a demonstration of its versatility, the new viral TRAP (vTRAP) method was used to capture translational profiles in brainstem, hypothalamus and cortex.