Adeno-associated Virus (AAV) Plasmids

Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) are small viruses originally discovered as contaminants of adenovirus stocks. One major advantage of using AAV for research is that it is replication-limited and typically not known to cause disease in humans. For these reasons, AAVs are generally contained at lower biosafety levels and elicit relatively low immunological effects in vivo. While AAVs can be handled at BSL-1, AAVs expressing oncogenes or toxins should be handled at BSL-2.

AAV can transduce both dividing and non-dividing cells with a low immune response and low toxicity. Although recombinant AAV does not integrate into the host genome, transgene expression can be long-lived. The utility of AAV is currently limited by its small packaging capacity (∼4.5 kb including ITRs), though there is a great deal of interest and effort directed toward expanding this capacity.

Traditionally, AAV requires the presence of another "helper" virus, such as adenovirus or herpes virus, in order to propagate. This is due to the reliance of the AAV on certain exogenous gene products that mediate AAV replication. This requirement has been circumvented with “helper-virus free systems,” which enable the production of infectious AAV particles without the use of a helper virus. Instead, specific gene products can be provided by helper plasmids (e.g., pHelper) and specific packaging cell lines (e.g., HEK293 cells) during AAV production.

Read our AAV Guide for more information about:

• AAV components
• Common uses of AAV
• Viral integration
• AAV serotypes
• Pseudotyping

Ready-to-use viral preparations for select plasmids are now available through Addgene. Visit our viral service page to learn more about our viral service, and see which plasmids are available as viral preparations.

AAV Packaging Plasmids

The following tables contain a list of packaging plasmids that are useful to produce AAV. In order to generate infectious AAV particles, a helper plasmid (encoding adenovirus E4, E2A and VA) and a RepCap plasmid (encoding AAV Rep and respective capsid protein which determines the AAV serotype) are used in conjunction with the plasmid that encodes the viral genome (typically called cis-plasmid or transfer plasmid).

Helper Plasmid
ID	Plasmid	Serotype	Description	PI
112867	pAdDeltaF6	All	Helper plasmid for AAV packaging, expressing adenovirus E4, E2A and VA	Wilson

RepCap Plasmids for Serotypes Available as a Viral Service at Addgene
ID	Plasmid	Capsid	Description	PI
112862	pAAV2/1	AAV1	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap1	Wilson
104963	pAAV2/2	AAV2	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap2	Fan
104964	pAAV2/5	AAV5	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap5	Fan
112863	pAAV2/7	AAV7	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap7	Wilson
112864	pAAV2/8	AAV8	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap8	Wilson
112865	pAAV2/9n	AAV9	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap9	Wilson
112866	pAAV2/rh10	AAVrh10	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2, and rh10 capsid	Wilson
81070	rAAV2-retro helper	AAV retrograde	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and retrograde capsid	Karpova
103005	pUCmini-iCAP-PHP.eB	PHP.eB	AAV packaging plasmid (non-standard), expressing Rep2 and PHP.eB Cap controlled by tTA-TRE amplification system	Gradinaru

RepCap Plasmids for Serotypes Not Available as a Viral Service at Addgene
ID	Plasmid	Capsid	Description	PI
64839	7M8	7M8	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and 7M8 capsid	Flannery, Schaffer
64867	shh10	shh10	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and engineered shh10 capsid	Flannery, Schaffer
92307	pAnc80L65AAP	Anc80L65AAP	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and ancestral capsid Anc80L65 with endogenous AAP	Vandenberghe
68837	pAnc80L65	Anc80L65	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and ancestral capsid Anc80L65	Vandenberghe
78504	pGG-B1	B1	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and B1 capsid (backbone may yield higher titers than pAR-B1)	Sena-Esteves
78503	pAR-B1(1986.1)	B1	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and B1 capsid	Sena-Esteves

AAV Plasmids

This table contains a general list of plasmids that are useful in the production of AAV. Many of these plasmids encode the AAV genome (i.e., the genetic information that will be contained in the virion) and/or can be used to generate infectious AAV particles. Additional helper plasmids (which may not be available at Addgene) may be required to produce infectious AAV particles. You can search or sort this table based on plasmid name, species, gene name, and more.