Patent ID: 6479281
Filing Date: 2002-11-12
Classification: A61K,C07K,C12N

Abstract:
A lentiviral vector system comprising:(a) a first vector, referred to as a pol vector, comprising a nucleotide sequence encoding a lentiviral pol protein, operably linked to a promoter and a polyadenylation sequence; (b) a nucleotide sequence encoding a lentiviral gag protein wherein at least 25% of the lentiviral matrix (MA) protein has been deleted, and wherein the MA myristylation sequence is present or substituted by a heterologous myristylation sequence, operably linked to a promoter and a polyadenylation sequence, referred to as gag nucleotide sequence and the gag nucleotide sequence is present on the pol vector or a different vector, referred to as a vector the gag nucleotide sequence is present on; (c) another vector, referred to as the env vector, comprising a nucleotide sequence to encode a functional env gene, operably linked to a promoter and a polyadenylation sequence, wherein if said env protein is a lentiviral env protein, it lacks at least 50% of the cytoplasmic tail or if it is not a lentiviral env protein it is an env protein of an endocytic virus; wherein the pol vector, the vector the gag nucleotide sequence is present on and the envelope vector, when expressed in combination, form a MA-deleted virion containing an envelope protein around a lentiviral capsid; and wherein said pol vector, the vector gag nucleotide sequence is present on and the env vector do not contain a sufficient number of nucleotides to encode the lentiviral gag, env and pol proteins on a single vector and do not contain nucleotides of the genome to effectively package HIV RNA, referred to as a packaging segment.