Table 1.

Characteristics and uses of vectors

Vector	Advantage	Disadvantage	Use
Lentivirus	Sustain gene expression	Insertional mutagenesis	Replacement gene therapy
	Acceptable coding capacity	Prone to recombination	Inherited genetic disorder
	No mutagenicity	Potential for silencing
	High transduction efficiency in vitro and acceptable transduction efficiency in vivo	Expensive
Oncoretrovirus	Sustain gene expression	Insertional mutagenesis	Replacement gene therapy
	Acceptable coding capacity	Prone to recombination	Inherited genetic disorder
	No mutagenicity	Potential for silencing	Trans-splicing RNA repair
	High transduction efficiency in vitro	Cannot transduce non-dividing cells
		Expensive
Adenovirus	Does not integrate into host genome	Transient gene expression	Antitumor therapy
	High transduction efficiency in vitro	Immunogenic	Chronic non-healing ulcer
	High coding capacity	Expensive
	Stable
Adeno-associated virus	Sustain gene expression	Insertional mutagenesis	Homology directed mutation repair
	High transduction efficiency in vivo and ex vivo	Low coding capacity
	Low immunogenicity	Immunogenic after repeated administration	Inherited genetic disorder
	Stable	Expensive	Systemic disease
Nonviral (plasmid DNA)	Does not integrate into host genome	Transient gene expression	Antitumor therapy
	High coding capacity	Risk of “Off target” genome editing	Chronic non-healing ulcer
	In vivo administration	Nonselective	Vaccination
	No immunogenicity	Low efficiency	Inherited genetic disorder
	Inexpensive		Homology directed mutation repair and genome editing
	Stable