Adeno-associated Virus (AAV) Plasmids

Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) are small viruses originally discovered as contaminants of adenovirus stocks. One major advantage of using AAV for research is that it is replication-limited and typically not known to cause disease in humans. For these reasons, AAVs are generally contained at lower biosafety levels and elicit relatively low immunological effects in vivo. While AAVs can be handled at BSL-1, AAVs expressing oncogenes or toxins should be handled at BSL-2.

AAV can transduce both dividing and non-dividing cells with a low immune response and low toxicity. Although recombinant AAV does not integrate into the host genome, transgene expression can be long-lived. The utility of AAV is currently limited by its small packaging capacity (∼4.5 kb including ITRs), though there is a great deal of interest and effort directed toward expanding this capacity.

Traditionally, AAV requires the presence of another "helper" virus, such as adenovirus or herpes virus, in order to propagate. This is due to the reliance of the AAV on certain exogenous gene products that mediate AAV replication. This requirement has been circumvented with “helper-virus free systems,” which enable the production of infectious AAV particles without the use of a helper virus. Instead, specific gene products can be provided by helper plasmids (e.g., pHelper) and specific packaging cell lines (e.g., HEK293 cells) during AAV production.

Read our AAV Guide for more information about:

• AAV components
• Common uses of AAV
• Viral integration
• AAV serotypes
• Pseudotyping

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AAV Packaging Plasmids

The following tables contain a list of packaging plasmids that are useful to produce AAV. In order to generate infectious AAV particles, a helper plasmid (encoding adenovirus E4, E2A and VA) and a RepCap plasmid (encoding AAV Rep and respective capsid protein which determines the AAV serotype) are used in conjunction with the plasmid that encodes the viral genome (typically called cis-plasmid or transfer plasmid).

Helper Plasmid
ID	Plasmid	Serotype	Description	PI
112867	pAdDeltaF6	All	Helper plasmid for AAV packaging, expressing adenovirus E4, E2A and VA	Wilson

RepCap Plasmids for Serotypes Available as a Viral Vector Packaging Service at Addgene
ID	Plasmid	Capsid	Description	PI
112862	pAAV2/1	AAV1	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap1	Wilson
104963	pAAV2/2	AAV2	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap2	Fan
104964	pAAV2/5	AAV5	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap5	Fan
112863	pAAV2/7	AAV7	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap7	Wilson
112864	pAAV2/8	AAV8	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap8	Wilson
112865	pAAV2/9n	AAV9	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and Cap9	Wilson
112866	pAAV2/rh10	AAVrh10	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2, and rh10 capsid	Wilson
81070	rAAV2-retro helper	AAV retrograde	AAV packaging plasmid, expressing Rep2 and retrograde capsid	Karpova
103005	pUCmini-iCAP-PHP.eB	PHP.eB	AAV packaging plasmid (non-standard), expressing Rep2 and PHP.eB Cap controlled by tTA-TRE amplification system	Gradinaru
103006	pUCmini-iCAP-PHP.S	PHP.S	AAV packaging plasmid (non-standard), expressing Rep2 and PHP.S Cap controlled by tTA-TRE amplification system	Gradinaru
127847	pUCmini-iCAP-PHP.V1	PHP.V1	AAV packaging plasmid (non-standard), expressing Rep2 and PHP.V1 Cap controlled by tTA-TRE amplification system	Gradinaru
175004	pUCmini-iCAP-AAV.CAP-B10	B10	AAV packaging plasmid (non-standard), expressing Rep2 and B10 Cap controlled by tTA-TRE amplification system	Gradinaru
175005	pUCmini-iCAP-AAV.CAP-B22	B22	AAV packaging plasmid (non-standard), expressing Rep2 and B22 Cap controlled by tTA-TRE amplification system	Gradinaru
185136	pUCmini-iCAP-AAV.MaCPNS1	MaCPNS1	AAV packaging plasmid (non-standard), expressing Rep2 and MaCPNS1 Cap controlled by tTA-TRE amplification system	Gradinaru
185137	pUCmini-iCAP-AAV.MaCPNS2	MaCPNS2	AAV packaging plasmid (non-standard), expressing Rep2 and MaCPNS2 Cap controlled by tTA-TRE amplification system	Gradinaru

All Available AAV Packaging Plasmids

This table contains helper plasmids for packaging your AAV product. You can search or this table based on plasmid name, capsid, and more.

AAV Plasmids

This table contains a general list of plasmids that encode the AAV genome (i.e., the genetic information that will be contained in the virion). Additional helper plasmids (which may not be available at Addgene) may be required to produce infectious AAV particles. You can search or sort this table based on plasmid name, species, gene name, and more.