Pseudotyping of Viral Vectors
Pseudotyped viruses have become an effective tool for the delivery of therapeutic genes to target cells in gene therapy due to their unique properties including very broad tropism, high biosafety and stability. Our company is committed to providing customers with pseudotyping of viral vectors to develop effective novel gene transfer vectors to accelerate the development of gene therapies for rare diseases.
Background
Different viral vectors such as retroviruses have a natural host cell population that they can effectively infect, but are limited in scope. While adeno-associated viruses (AAV) are able to infect a relatively wide range of cell types, the difficulty in infecting certain specific cell types limits their use in gene therapy. Limiting or expanding the range of cells sensitive to transduction by gene therapy vectors is essential for the development of effective gene therapies. The development of pseudotyped viruses of enveloped viruses offers an attractive approach to the problem of gene delivery.
Pseudotyped viruses are viral particles that are encapsulated in other enveloped viral glycoproteins, but whose cellular and histophilic properties are determined by the encapsulated glycoproteins. Pseudotyped viruses have been shown to be a novel gene transfer vector with the advantages of non-cell cycle-dependent integration, easier concentration into high titers than proto-viruses, broad tropism, and safe and efficient transfection of cells, which provides a new way to solve the key problem of vector systems in gene therapy.
Fig. 1 Pseudotyping of lentiviral vectors. (Gutierrez-Guerrero A, et al., 2020)
Our Pseudotyped Viral Vector Development Services
If you are looking for more control over the type of cells that will be infected by a gene therapy viral vector, our pseudotyping service for viral vectors can help. We use viral envelope proteins from another virus to produce viral vectors to help our customers restrict or broaden the host cell range to meet the needs of gene delivery in gene therapies for rare diseases. Our services include, but are not limited to:
- Development of vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein (VSV-G) pseudotyped virus vectors
- Development of baculovirus GP64 pseudotyped viral vectors
- Development of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus glycoprotein (LCMV GP) pseudotyped viral vectors
- Development of alphavirus glycoprotein pseudotyped virus vectors
VSV-G is widely used for integration into other viruses due to its stability and wide range of tissue and hostophilic properties. We use VSV-G to help our customers produce stable retroviral vectors, lentiviral vectors, and baculoviral vectors for gene therapy.
We help customers prepare GP64 pseudotyped lentiviral vectors by pseudotyping with natural or ligand-modified GP64. This modified lentivirus vector lacks cytotoxicity and narrower tropism, which can promote the effective application of lentivirus and other retroviral vectors in gene therapy.
LCMV-GP pseudotyped vectors offer the advantages of high stability, low virulence, and broad tropism. We use the envelope glycoproteins derived from LCMV to engineer pseudotyped viral vectors such as LCMV-WE GP pseudotyped HIV-1 vectors and LCMV-WE GP pseudotyped feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) vectors to target specific neuronal cells.
We provide our customers with pseudotyped lentiviral vectors using mainly the envelope glycoproteins of Ross River virus (RRV) and Semliki Forest virus (SFV), the obtained vectors have the potential to be valuable as gene transfer vectors in gene therapy for rare neurological diseases.
We offer pseudotyping of viral vectors to help customers achieve the following purposes:
- Altering the host tropism of viral vectors
- Lowering cytotoxicity of viral vectors
- Altering sensitivity to serum of viral vectors
- Studying a viral pathogen more safely
As a leading biotechnology company in the field of gene therapy, our company provides customers with pseudotyping of enveloped and non-enveloped vectors to modify host tropism or increase or decrease the stability of viral particles, accelerating the development of effective gene therapies for rare diseases. If you are interested in our services, please feel free to contact us for more details.
Reference
- Gutierrez-Guerrero, A.; et al. Lentiviral vector pseudotypes: Precious tools to improve gene modification of hematopoietic cells for research and gene therapy. Viruses, 2020, 12(9): 1016.
For Research Use Only.
