. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Jan 1.

Published in final edited form as: Pharmacol Res. 2009 Oct 17;61(1):14–26. doi: 10.1016/j.phrs.2009.10.002

Table 2.

Commonly used viral vectors and their properties

	Adeno-associated virus	Adenovirus	Herpes Virus	Lentivirus
Transgene capacity	2–6 kb	8 kb-30 kb	40 kb-150 kb	6–9 kb (proviral length)
Genome	ss DNA	ds DNA	ds DNA	ss RNA
Vector Genome	Episomal,concatamer	Episomal	Episomal, concatamer	Random integration, episomal¹
CNS Tropism	Neurons and glia	Glia > Neurons	Neurons	Neurons and glia
Expression onset	Days-Weeks	Days	Days	Week
Expression duration	Months - Years	Weeks - Year	Weeks - Year	Months-Years

Non-integrating lentiviral vectors have mutatant integrase; vector genome is linear or circular DNA episome