Some aspect of this invention provide nucleic acid constructs for transgene expression. Some aspects of this invention provide multicistronic nucleic acid constructs, for example, comprising an expression cassette encoding a hairpin RNA and a reporter expression cassette. Some aspects of this invention provide nucleic acid constructs comprising two or more self- complementary nucleic acid sequences, for example, hairpin RNA encoding nucleic acid sequences and AAV inverse terminal repeats. Methods for the use of the constructs in therapy and research are also provided.
