Adenovirus-adeno-associated virus hybrid for large-scale recombinant adeno-associated virus production

Recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) holds promise for applications in gene therapy. Advances in clinical studies of rAAV-based gene therapeutics have generated an encouraging momentum in the field of gene therapy; however, one of the major obstacles to the eventual clinical success of rAAV-mediated gene therapy is the need for large-scale production of clinical-grade vectors. The transfection-based rAAV production method is well suited for preclinical studies in small animal models, but it is difficult to support large-scale clinical studies with this method. In the past decade, several scalable rAAV production methods have emerged from extensive efforts to develop large-scale manufacturing processes. Among those, the recombinant adenovirus-AAV infection method has some unique features in vector quality and yield. This minireview provides an overview of this scaleable rAAV production platform, describing its basic components and biological mechanisms and process.