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Updated: Jun 16, 2026
A Tetracycline-regulated Cell Line Produces High-titer Lentiviral Vectors that Specifically Target Dendritic Cells
Published on: June 19, 2013
Targeting lentiviral vector to specific cell types through surface displayed single chain antibody and fusogenic
Yuning Lei1, Kye-Il Joo, Jonathan Zarzar
1Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Background:
Viral delivery remains one of the most commonly used techniques today in the field of gene therapy. However, one of the remaining hurdles is the off-targeting effect of viral delivery. To overcome this obstacle, we recently developed a method to incorporate an antibody and a fusogenic molecule (FM) as two distinct molecules into the lentiviral surface. In this report, we expand this strategy to utilize a single chain antibody (SCAb) for targeted transduction.
Results:
Two versions of the SCAb were generated to pair with our various engineered FMs by linking the heavy chain and the light chain variable domains of the anti-CD20 antibody (alphaCD20) via a GS linker and fusing them to the hinge-CH2-CH3 region of human IgG. The resulting protein was fused to either a HLA-A2 transmembrane domain or a VSVG transmembrane domain for anchoring purpose. Lentiviral vectors generated with either version of the SCAb and a selected FM were then characterized for binding and fusion activities in CD20-expressing cells.
Conclusion:
Certain combinations of the SCAb with various FMs could result in an increase in viral transduction. This two-molecule lentiviral vector system design allows for parallel optimization of the SCAb and FMs to improve targeted gene delivery.
