Syn-Cre-Syn-GFP Lentivirus

Lentivirus belongs to the retroviridae family, but has a more complex genome than γ-retrovirus. It is named lentivirus because of its long incubation period. Most retroviruses do not have the ability to penetrate the nuclear membrane and can only wait for mitosis to enter the nucleus. Lentivirus can penetrate the nuclear membrane and infect a wider range of cell stages. It can effectively infect both dividing cells and non-dividing cells. Therefore, in the development, lentiviral vectors have gradually replaced the original retroviral vector system. Lentivirus vectors are multifunctional tools with the characteristics of being able to infect non-dividing cells, accommodating large exogenous target gene fragments, strong stability, and low immunogenicity. These viruses can achieve long-term and stable gene expression and permanently integrate into the host genome. A large number of studies have shown that compared with other viral vectors, lentivirus has a high infection efficiency and is more likely to infect some difficult-to-infect tissues and cells. Its efficiency can generally reach more than 30%-95%. Compared with adenovirus and adeno-associated virus, lentivirus has a larger capacity, can carry a larger and more complex genome, and has the ability to integrate transgenes into the host genome to make the product stable and long-term expression. As a vector that replaces retrovirus, lentivirus retains the advantages of high expression efficiency and long expression time, and also has the advantages of integrating its genome into non-dividing cells and transducing, and improving infection ability. It is mainly used in in vitro gene therapy, accounting for nearly 70%, especially in the field of CAR-T therapy. There are also clinical studies on in vivo gene therapy. For many diseases for which hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is the only treatment, lentiviral gene therapy is likely to create new treatment prospects.