Packaging System

Gryphon™ pCHAC Retrovirus

Retrovirus is a proven method for efficient delivery of genes into dividing mammalian cells. Because the gene of interest integrates into the host cell genome, retroviral expression offers more consistency and reliability than episomal expression. In addition, Allele’s retroviral system is safe and easy to use because the viral particles produced are replication incompetent and can be easily inactivated*.

Allele’s retrovirus system includes a retroviral vector and a packaging cell line. The retroviral vector contains viral packaging signal, transcription and processing elements and your cloned gene of interest. The packaging cell line carries viral genes, i.e., gag, pol and env, essential for virus reproduction. After the retroviral vector is transfected into the packaging cell line, viral particles are produced. These viral particles acquired envelope glycoproteins residing on the packaging cell’s membrane and these glycoproteins determine which kind of cells the viral particles can infect. Allele’s Retroviral Expression System comes with both an ecotropic (capable of gene delivery into murine or rat cells) and amphotropic packaging cell line (capable of gene delivery into dividing cells of most mammalian species).

*A biosafety level 2 facility is required to work with retroviral particles in the United States. Please check your institutional policy for specific requirement.

Gryphon Retrovirus Expression System

The Gold Standard for Efficient Gene Delivery Using Retrovirus

·  Highly efficient gene delivery of nearly all dividing mammalian cells

·  Eliminate tedious transfection optimization with multiple plasmids

·  Fast and high-titer virus production

·  Choice of ecotropic and amphotropic packaging cell lines

·  Easily create stable cell lines

By using a packaging cell line and thus, eliminating the need to transfect multiple plasmids, Gryphon Retrovirus system offered the most time-tested method for producing infectious, replication-incompetent retrovirus than can efficiently transfer genes into a variety of mammalian cell types in vitro or in vivo. This system is currently employed in over 2,500 laboratories worldwide. It is based on the Moloney Murine Leukemia virus (MMULV) and allows for delivery of genes to most dividing mammalian cell types, including many difficult to transfect cells. Allele has upgraded this previously offered Phoenix retrovirus packaging system to a more efficient system that routinely results in a titer of 10^8 or higher; and thus, we have discontinued the previously known Phoenix amphotropic and ecotropic cells: A similar Ecotropic and Amphotopic packaging cell line, Gryphon, originated from different sources are currently available.