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

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).

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.