The adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector system is a popular and versatile tool for in vitro and in vivo gene delivery. AAV is effective in transducing many mammalian cell types, and, unlike adenovirus, has very low immunogenicity, being almost entirely nonpathogenic in vivo. This makes AAV the ideal viral vector system for many animal studies.
An scAAV vector is first constructed as a plasmid in E. coli. It is then transfected into packaging cells along with helper plasmids, where the region of the vector between the two inverted terminal repeats (ITRs) is packaged into live virus. Any gene(s) placed in-between the two ITRs are introduced into target cells along with the rest of viral genome.
The wild-type AAV genome is a linear single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) with two ITRs forming a hairpin structure on each end. It is therefore also known as ssAAV. In order to express genes on ssAAV vectors in host cells, the ssDNA genome needs to first be converted to double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) through two pathways: 1) synthesis of second-strand DNA by the DNA polymerase machinery of host cells using the existing ssDNA genome as the template and the 3' ITR as the priming site; 2) formation of intermolecular dsDNA between the plus- and minus-strand ssAAV genomes. The former pathway is the dominant one.
Our scAAV transfer vector is engineered from ssAAV with two important differences. First, the trs (terminal resolution site) located in the 3' ITR is deleted in scAAV. As a result, scAAV has a tendency of forming a single-stranded DNA molecule during replication that is the concatenation of two full single-stranded genomes, one plus strand and the other minus strand. This molecule can form a self-complementary intramolecular dsDNA genome. When scAAV viral particles enter host cells, this self-complementary intramolecular dsDNA genome can skip second-strand synthesis, which is the main rate-limiting step associated with conventional ssAAV transduction, to quickly express genes carried on the scAAV vector. Therefore, scAAV has faster and increased transgene expression relative to ssAAV. Second, due to fact that wildtype AAV can carry up to about 4.7 kb of single-stranded DNA genome and yet each scAAV DNA molecule packaged into a viral particle is the concatemer of two single-stranded genomes of opposite strands, the cargo capacity of scAAV in terms of the length of the 5' ITR to 3' ITR transgene that can be properly packaged into mature virus is only about half that of ssAAV.
A major practical advantage of AAV is that in most cases AAV can be handled in biosafety level 1 (BSL1) facilities. This is due to AAV being inherently replication-deficient, producing little or no inflammation, and causing no known human disease.
Many strains of AAV have been identified in nature. They are divided into different serotypes based on different antigenicity of the capsid protein on the viral surface. Different serotypes can render the virus with different tissue tropism (i.e. tissue specificity of infection). When our AAV vectors are packaged into virus, different serotypes can be conferred to the virus by using different capsid proteins for the packaging. The serotypes currently offered by us for our ssAAV and scAAV vector systems include - serotypes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6.2, 7, 8, 9, rh10, DJ, DJ/8, PHP.eB, PHP.S, AAV2-retro and AAV2-QuadYF. The table below lists different AAV serotypes and their tissue tropism.
List by Serotype
List by Tissue Type
Serotype |
Tissue tropism |
AAV1 |
Smooth muscle, skeletal muscle, CNS, brain, lung, retina, inner ear, pancreas, heart, liver |
AAV2 |
Smooth muscle, CNS, brain, liver, pancreas, kidney, retina, inner ear, testes |
AAV3 |
Smooth muscle, liver, lung |
AAV4 |
CNS, retina, lung, kidney, heart |
AAV5 |
Smooth muscle, CNS, brain, lung, retina, heart |
AAV6 |
Smooth muscle, heart, lung, pancreas, adipose, liver |
AAV6.2 |
Lung, liver, inner ear |
AAV7 |
Smooth muscle, retina, CNS, brain, liver |
AAV8 |
Smooth muscle, CNS, brain, retina, inner ear, liver, pancreas, heart, kidney, adipose |
AAV9 |
Smooth muscle, skeletal muscle, lung, liver, heart, pancreas, CNS, retina, inner ear, testes, kidney, adipose |
AAVrh10 |
Smooth muscle, lung, liver, heart, pancreas, CNS, retina, kidney |
AAV-DJ |
Liver, heart, kidney, spleen |
AAV-DJ/8 |
Liver, brain, spleen, kidney |
AAV-PHP.eB |
CNS |
AAV-PHP.S |
PNS |
AAV2-retro |
Spinal nerves |
AAV2-QuadYF |
Endothelial cell, retina |
AAV2.7m8 |
Retina, inner ear |
Tissue type |
Recommended AAV serotypes |
Smooth muscle |
AAV1, AAV2, AAV3, AAV5, AAV6, AAV7, AAV8, AAV9, AAVrh10 |
Skeletal muscle |
AAV1, AAV9 |
CNS |
AAV1, AAV2, AAV4, AAV5, AAV7, AAV8, AAV9, AAVrh10, AAV-PHP.eB |
PNS |
AAV-PHP.S |
Brain |
AAV1, AAV2, AAV5, AAV7, AAV8, AAV-DJ/8 |
Retina |
AAV1, AAV2, AAV4, AAV5, AAV7, AAV8, AAV9, AAVrh10, AAV2-QuadYF, AAV2.7m8 |
Inner ear |
AAV1, AAV2, AAV6.2, AAV8, AAV9, AAV2.7m8 |
Lung |
AAV1, AAV3, AAV4, AAV5, AAV6, AAV6.2, AAV9, AAVrh10 |
Liver |
AAV1, AAV2, AAV3, AAV6, AAV6.2, AAV7, AAV8, AAV9, AAVrh10, AAV-DJ, AAV-DJ/8 |
Pancreas |
AAV1, AAV2, AAV6, AAV8, AAV9, AAVrh10 |
Heart |
AAV1, AAV4, AAV5, AAV6, AAV8, AAV9, AAVrh10, AAV-DJ |
Kidney |
AAV2, AAV4, AAV8, AAV9, AAVrh10, AAV-DJ, AAV-DJ/8 |
Adipose |
AAV6, AAV8, AAV9 |
Testes |
AAV2, AAV9 |
Spleen |
AAV-DJ, AAV-DJ/8 |
Spinal nerves |
AAV2-retro |
Endothelial cells |
AAV2-QuadYF |
For further information about this vector system, please refer to the papers below.