Oxford Biomedica designed its high-quality vectors to provide the highest safety and efficacy.
Optimised and well-characterised, our vectors are known by key regulatory authorities.
Self-inactivating LTRs
Self-Inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vectors contain modified LTR sequences, such that only the transgene cassette is active in transduced cells.
Without affecting vector titre, this modification:
- further improves the biosafety of our vectors by reducing the likelihood of replication-competent entities
- can aid the expression of the transgene by avoiding any impact of promoter activity from the LTRs
- reduces the risk of insertional mutagenesis
Mutated WPRE
The WPRE (Woodhuck Hepatitis Virus post-transcriptional regulatory element) is a common feature of contemporary retroviral vectors that improves production and potentially gene expression in target cells. Oxford Biomedica owns patents covering a mutated WPRE whereby the X protein, known for its potential tumorigenicity, is not expressed.
Codon optimised Gag/Pol
Oxford Biomedica owns patents protecting codon optimisation of lentiviral Gag/Pol packaging sequences. This feature removes virus-restricted aspects of Gag/Pol expression, optimising vector production while minimising the risk of homologous recombination during production that theoretically might lead to replication-competent entities.