Retroviral Product Selection Guide

Constitutive Expression Vectors

Retroviral vectors transduce a wide range of hard-to-transfect dividing cells. Designed for high retroviral titers and high expression of your transgene; compatible with all of our retroviral packaging cell lines.

Tetracycline-Inducible Expression Vectors (Tet-On 3G)

Obtain the tightest possible control of gene expression, using Tet-On 3G or Tet-Express systems.

MSCV Vectors

Introduce and express target genes in pluripotent cell lines including murine or human hematopoietic, embryonic stem (ES), and embryonal carcinoma (EC) cells.

shRNA Vectors

Clone your shRNA downstream of a U6 promoter to combine high delivery efficiency with knockdown of gene expression.

GP2-293 Packaging Cell Line

GP2-293 stably expresses the essential viral packaging genes gag and pol, however, the viral envelope (env) must be supplied in trans via transient transfection. This results in higher titers and the flexibility to choose between envelopes. This cell line is not sold separately, but provided with both of our retroviral packaging systems:

Retro-X Universal Packaging System

The Retro-X Universal Packaging System includes GP2-293 cells and four different envelope plasmids, so you vary virus tropism (pantropic, i.e. VSV-G, amphotropic, ecotropic, or dualtropic) to suit your target cells.

Pantropic Expression System

The Pantropic Retroviral Expression System includes our GP2-293 packaging cell line, the pVSV-G envelope plasmid, and two MMLV-based retroviral expression vectors that allow you to express your gene of interest from alternative promoters.

Alternatively, we offer three cell lines that stably express all three essential packaging genes (gag, pol, and env). These cell lines can be purchased separately.

AmphoPack 293 Packaging Cell Line

Use the AmphoPack 293 Packaging Cell Line to produce recombinant retroviral particles that infect a broad range of mammalian cells.

EcoPack 2-293 Packaging Cell Line

Use the EcoPack 2-293 Packaging Cell Line to limit tropism to mouse and rat cells.

RetroPack PT67 Cell Line

Use the RetroPack PT67 Cell Line to create a stable cell line for continuous retrovirus production.

qRT-PCR Titration Kit

Simply purify viral RNA, and then quantify the number of retroviral genome copies using qRT-PCR and SYBR® technologies.

Retro-X Concentrator

Increase retrovirus titer 100X—no ultracentrifugation. Just mix your MMLV- or MSCV-based retroviral supernatant with the retrovirus concentration reagent, incubate for a short period, and spin the mixture in a standard centrifuge.

Magnetic Transduction Beads

Perform retroviral transduction in only 30 min using the magnetic beads supplied with the Lenti-X Accelerator. Simply bind your viral supernatant to the beads and pull retrovirus (or lentivirus) to your cells with a magnet.

RetroNectin Reagent

Coat your culture dish with this multivalent molecule to significantly increase transduction efficiency. RetroNectin co-localizes retrovirus (or lentivirus) particles with your target cell. Perfect for hard-to-transduce suspension cells and stem cells.