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Dear scientists using AAV,

We hear your questions! How much virus should I inject? How long do I need to wait? What serotype and promoter should I use to target my favorite neurons?

We don’t know all of the answers, but we’re betting that your colleagues do. That’s why we’re launching the AAV Data Hub. The Data Hub is an open platform for scientists using AAV to share practical information about their experiences. It will contain all of the juicy and important details that you won’t find in the final publication and we have already collected over 100 entries spanning six different species and dozens of different expression sites.

We’re always looking for ways to improve our shipment processes. After reading a publication describing how short term storage on dry ice can shift sample pH, we wondered whether or not the dry ice we use to keep viruses frozen during shipment was having an impact on the samples. We therefore devised a few experiments to determine if our tubes were permeable to the CO₂ released from dry ice, and whether this affected the pH of our viral samples. Read on to learn how aqueous samples might be affected by dry ice, and specifically how dry ice can affect virus from Addgene.

Bottom line: there’s good news and there’s bad news. The bad news is that some of tubes’ o-rings are, in fact, permeable to CO₂ at low temperatures (-80°C) and once in the tube, the CO₂ can alter the pH of the liquid sample. The good news is that this effect is reversible and the pH shift can be prevented. Keep this information in mind if you’re planning on shipping something on dry ice or if you’re receiving samples on dry ice - it may prevent you from seeing some unexpected results.

In the middle of 2016 Addgene started distributing a small but growing catalog of ready-made AAV and Lentiviral preps. This new Viral Service represents Addgene’s largest new initiative since we started distributing plasmids in 2004. We’ve already distributed over 500 viral samples to scientists all over the world. Now that the service is successfully launched, I would like to thank some of the people and organizations who helped us reach this milestone.

Numbers in the large colored circles are rough approximations of the total number of CRISPR plasmids for that particular organism available at Addgene. Percentages represent the fraction of that total with the indicated function.

One huge reason CRISPR has become such a popular genome editing tool is its developers’ willingness to make their CRISPR technologies available to the academic research community. At Addgene, we’ve helped distribute many of these technologies in plasmid form and are proud to have facilitated their fast adoption. However, in many cases the plasmids themselves are only the starting point for the production of viruses used to deliver CRISPR components to cells or organisms under study. In the past we’ve left the arduous task of virus production to individual labs, but now we’re very excited to provide ready-to-use CRISPR lentiviral preps to researchers across the globe.

Instead of spending time and money producing virus from select vectors in the repository yourself, you can now order ready-to-use virus directly from Addgene! As part of our new Viral Service, we’re distributing lentivirus (with many CRISPR tools included among the preps that are currently available) and adeno associated virus (AAV, primarily chemogenetics tools for now but with optogenetic tools coming soon). The viral preparations undergo rigorous quality control testing at Addgene meaning they come ready made to accelerate your research.