Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Journal of Virology, February 2009, p. 2025-2028, Vol. 83, No. 4
0022-538X/09/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.01644-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Regenerative Medicine Program, Ottawa Health Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,1 Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Department of Medicine, and Centre for Neuromuscular Disease, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada2
Received 1 August 2008/ Accepted 19 November 2008
Replication-defective adenovirus (Ad) vectors can vary considerably in genome length, but whether this affects virion stability has not been investigated. Helper-dependent Ad vectors with a genome size of
30 kb were 100-fold more sensitive to heat inactivation than their parental helper virus (>36 kb), and increasing the genome size of the vector significantly improved heat stability. A similar relationship between genome size and stability existed for Ad with early region 1 deleted. Loss of infectivity was due to release of vertex proteins, followed by disintegration of the capsid. Thus, not only does the viral DNA encode all of the heritable information essential for virus replication, it also plays a critical role in maintaining capsid strength and integrity.
Published ahead of print on 26 November 2008.
This article has been cited by other articles:
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»