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Updated: Feb 9, 2026

Production and Purification of Baculovirus for Gene Therapy Application
Published on: April 9, 2018
Baculovirus for gene delivery to mammalian cells: Past, present and future
Maysam Mansouri1, Philipp Berger2
1Paul Scherrer Institute, Biomolecular Research, Applied Molecular Biology, CH-5232 Villigen, Switzerland; ETH Zürich, Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, Mattenstrasse 26, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Baculovirus is an insect virus which has been used for more than thirty years for production of recombinant proteins in insect cells. However, baculovirus can also be harnessed for efficient gene delivery to mammalian cells if it is equipped with mammalian promoters. This technology is known as BacMam and has been used for gene delivery to immortalized cell lines, stem cells, and primary cells, as well as for gene delivery in animals. Baculovirus has unique features when compared to mammalian viruses. Besides the fact that it is replication-incompetent and does not integrate into the host genome, it has large capacity for foreign DNA. This capacity can for example be used to deliver multiple genes for reprogramming of stem cells, or for delivery of large homology constructs for genome editing. In this review, we provide a brief overview of baculovirus-based gene delivery and its recent applications in therapy and basic research. We also describe how baculovirus is manipulated for efficient transduction in mammalian cells and we highlight possible future improvements.
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