You can use viral vectors for many experimental purposes. To help you make sense of all the viral vector information that's out there, Addgenie Leila Haery has summed up some of the most important characteristics of retroviruses, lentiviruses, AAVs, and adenoviruses in this easy-to-use guide. Print out the guide and use it for quick reference when you're designing your next virus experiment.

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We’ve all had the feeling where it seems like we’re the only one in the room who doesn’t know about an important scientific principle.

Example Scenario

Important science person: ...and then we found out that it wasn’t a deoxynucleotide, it was a dideoxynucleotide!

Room full of important science people: (laughter in unison)

You: (nervous laughter)

Lentiviral vectors are one of the most popular and useful viral vectors in the lab. Advantages of lentivirus include a large genetic capacity and the ability to transduce both dividing and non-dividing cells. Lentiviral vectors are the vector of choice for many CRISPR applications, and they’ve also had success in clinical gene therapy applications. Read on to learn more about the current (and future) applications of lentiviral vectors!

The use of viral vectors in research is beneficial for a number of reasons, including but not limited to: helping to get difficult-to-deliver DNA into mammalian cells, increasing the efficiency of gene transduction, allowing for control over which cells are infected through viral pseudotyping, and ease of vector cloning and modification. At the most basic level, viral vectors consist of a viral genome that has been adapted into a plasmid-based technology and modified for safety through the removal of many essential genes and the separation of the viral components. Read on for a brief description of the viruses used to make these vectors as well as a table defining the major elements found within the plasmids comprising the viral vector systems.

Lentiviruses are useful and efficient tools to introduce your gene of interest into cells. Unlike gamma-retroviruses that can only infect dividing cells, lentiviruses can infect dividing and non-dividing cells. 

Addgene has an extensive collection of lentiviral plasmids created for a variety of applications including cDNA expression, shRNA-mediated knockdown, Tet and Cre-regulated expression, CRISPR genome editing, and more. Not surprisingly, we receive many questions from scientists all over the world looking for some additional information or clarification on these vectors. Read on to find the answers to our most frequently asked lentiviral questions.