Overview of the retrovirus transduction system.

A retrovirus vector is an infectious virus used to introduce a nonviral gene into mitotic cells in vivo or in vitro. The efficient and precise integration machinery of naturally occurring retroviruses is utilized to produce either a single copy or a few copies of the viral genome stably integrated into a host chromosome. This unit presents an overview of the retrovirus life cycle and a description of vector designs and packaging cell lines.