VIRAL VECTOR & GENE EDITING CORE

Retroviral Vectors

Overview

What are Retroviral Vectors?

Retroviral vectors are derived from retroviruses, a family of RNA viruses that replicate through a DNA intermediate using reverse transcription. The viral RNA is converted into DNA by the enzyme reverse transcriptase, and this DNA is then integrated into the host genome by integrase.

Applications in Gene Therapy

Retroviral vectors have a wide range of applications, including:

Gene Therapy: Retroviruses are commonly employed in gene therapy applications to deliver therapeutic cargo to the desired cell population
Cancer Treatment: Retroviruses are employed in advanced therapies like CAR T-cell therapy, where T-cells are modified to find and destroy cancer cells.
Vaccine Development:They are also being explored for use in vaccine development, for diseases where traditional vaccines are ineffective.
Preclinical Research:Retroviruses are commonly used in basic research to introduce gene products into in vitro systems or animal models, facilitating studies on gene function and regulation.

Advantages of Retroviral Vectors

Ability to Infect Dividing Cells:retroviral vectors are capable of transducing dividing cells with high efficiency; they are unable to transduce non-dividing or slow- pace dividing cells, which can be an advantage for some applications; e.g. labeling and tracing of pre-mitotic neurons in the CNS
Stable Gene Expression:Once integrated into the host genome, retroviral vectors can provide stable and long-term expression of the therapeutic gene.
Low Immunogenicity:Engineered, recombinant retroviral vectors typically exhibit low immunogenicity, reducing the likelihood of an adverse immune response.

Safety Considerations

While retroviral vectors offer significant therapeutic potential, there are important safety concerns, including:

Immune Reactions: Although designed to be less immunogenic, there is still a risk of the host immune system recognizing and reacting to the viral components.
Undesired Integration:Retroviral vectors are integrating systems. The undesired integration may increase a risk of insertional mutagenesis, oncogenicity and other related toxicities.

Conclusion: Retroviral vectors represent a promising avenue in gene therapy and molecular biology, with ongoing research aimed at optimizing their safety and efficacy. Their unique ability to deliver genetic material into a wide variety of cell types makes them invaluable tools in both research and clinical applications.

Product Information

Retroviral Vector Production
The IPRD Viral Vector and Gene Editing Core offers high-quality retroviral vectors suitable for a variety of research applications. Our retroviral vectors are designed for stable integration into dividing cells and are produced under rigorous quality control procedures.

Titering and Aliquoting
All retroviral preparations are titered using:

Flow cytometry or colony-forming assays when reporter or selection markers are present
Real-time PCR (qPCR) on transduced cells when such markers are absent

Aliquots are provided in 1 mL, 10 mL, or 25 µL volumes depending on prep type. All vectors undergo rigorous quality control to ensure consistency and safety.

Retroviral Vector Prep Summary

Prep Type	Grade	Titer	Total Volume	Aliquot Size	Production Time	Academic Cost	Non-Academic Cost
Small Non-Concentrated	In Vitro	≥ 1 × 10⁷ vg/mL	10 mL	1 mL	7 days	$360	$450
Large Non-Concentrated	In Vitro	≥ 1 × 10⁷ vg/mL	100 mL	10 µL	7 days	$900	$1,125
Concentrated (In Vitro Grade)	In Vitro	≥ 2.5 × 10⁹ vg/mL	200 µL	25 µL	14 days	$1,080	$1,350
Small Concentrated (In Vivo Grade)	In Vivo	≥ 2.5 × 10⁹ vg/mL	50 µL	25 µL	14 days	$895	$1,112
Medium Concentrated (Standard In Vivo)	In Vivo	≥ 2.5 × 10⁹ vg/mL	200 µL	25 µL	21 days	$1,800	$2,250
Large Concentrated (In Vivo Grade)	In Vivo	≥ 5 × 10⁹ vg/mL	1 mL	25 µL	28 days	$7,200	$9,000

Internal FSU user rates are available, please contact us directly for a quote.

How to Order

To connect with IPRD’s Viral Vector & Gene Editing Core and place an order, simply email your request to viral.core@med.fsu.edu