473. Semliki Based Systems for the Production of Retroviral Vectors: A Safety Concern

Abstract

The development of efficient and safe production procedures are an essential goal conditioning viral vectors usefulness. For retroviral vectors production, two groups have suggested that Semliki forest virus (SFV) derived systems might generate interestingly elevated yields. The system relies on the transfection of three complementary SFV replicons. It is noteworthy that Muriaux and collaborator have shown that RNA is an important component for retroviral particles and that some SFV RNA could be packaged into retroviral particles. Furthermore, Lebedeva et al. and Rolls et al. have shown the arising of autonomous replication replicon from SFV vectors expressing various viral glyco-proteins envelopes. Thus, these data suggested that retroviral vectors might be vehicles for all sorts of SFV derived replicons.