pCMV-dR8.91

The pCMV-dR8.91 plasmid vector is widely used in gene transfer and gene therapy experiments. This vector is particularly useful in the production of lentiviral particles due to the unique characteristics it possesses, which greatly improve the efficiency and safety of lentiviral vector production. Firstly, the pCMV-dR8.91 vector carries necessary genes for virus packaging, including gag, pol, tat, and rev genes. These genes permit the in-vitro production of viral particles once the vector is introduced into a host cell. Secondly, the vector has been designed to have a deletion in the packaging signal, preventing the packaging genes from being incorporated into the produced virions. This adds an additional layer of safety, as it ensures that the produced viral particles are replication-incompetent. In practice, the pCMV-dR8.91 vector is co-transfected with a transfer vector and an envelope plasmid into a packaging cell line, such as HEK293T cells. This effectively produces lentiviral particles carrying the gene of interest, which can then be used to infect a broad range of mammalian cells, both dividing and non-dividing cells, for stable, long-term gene expression studies.