What is the safety concerns associated with using retroviral vectors and packaging cells?
The National Institute of Health and the Center for Disease Control have designated retroviral vectors such as those from Moloney murine leukemia virus (MoMuLV) as Biosafety Level 2. NIH guidelines require that retroviral production and infection be performed in a Biosafety Level 2 facility. Recombinant retroviruses are extremely labile and are inactivated by ethanol, detergents, or bleach Because of their lipid-derived membrane. 2. Why use a retroviral expression system? Expression systems based on retroviral gene delivery are generally more reliable and have broader utility than standard plasmid-based transfection systems. Retroviral gene delivery (infection) is usually used instead of transfection when cells are difficult to transfect. Retroviruses preferentially integrate into actively transcribed regions of the genome. The infection yields a cell line that stably expresses your gene of interest. 3. What is the limit on the size of my DNA insert? Retroviruses efficiently package RN
