Buying vector rather than making it: what a lentivirus production service should deliver in titre, purity and documentation before a batch is usable and what a lentivirus package specification has to name, why adenovirus production and an adenovirus vector are a different containment and purification problem despite the shared vocabulary, what aav concentration, an aav package specification and aav analysis have to report about capsid content rather than about volume, where a gene delivery systems comparison is really a comparison of persistence and immune exposure, what crispr control constructs a service should supply alongside the vector, and what has to be agreed before the order is placed

Ordering vector

1. Name the titre method in the order. Physical particle, genome and functional titres differ by large factors, and only a functional titre on a cell type like yours predicts what you will get. Specify it, and specify the cell line it is measured on.
2. Specify purity for the target cells. Crude supernatant is adequate for robust lines and inadequate for primary cells, where residual medium components and cellular debris cause toxicity. Concentrated and purified preparations exist for that reason.
3. Ask what capsid content is reported for adeno associated vector. Full to empty ratio changes the effective dose and the immune load. A titre with no capsid content figure describes half the product.
4. Confirm containment and shipping before ordering. Vector arrives under containment requirements and institutional approval, and the paperwork has to exist before the box does. This is the commonest cause of a delayed start.
5. Order the controls with the vector. An empty or non targeting construct made in the same run is the control that matters, because it shares the preparation and its contaminants. Ordering it later gives a control from a different batch.
6. Agree what happens on a low titre batch. Titre varies between productions. Whether a low batch is remade, credited or accepted with an adjusted dose should be settled in the order rather than after it.

Titre is a negotiated number

Because methods differ so widely, a titre only means something with its method attached. Two suppliers quoting the same figure can be measuring quantities that differ by more than an order of magnitude.

Fix the method in the order and, once, measure a batch yourself on your own cells. That single calibration makes every subsequent order interpretable.

Approvals are the schedule risk

Institutional biosafety approval, import and shipping paperwork and receiving arrangements take longer than production for many groups, and they are entirely administrative.

Start them when the vector is designed, not when it is ordered. It is the cheapest schedule protection available in this area.

Common questions

Should I make or buy lentivirus?

Buy for occasional needs, for primary cell work needing purified material, and where containment space is scarce. Make when production is frequent enough to justify the containment, the plasmid and the person.

Which titre matters?

The functional titre on a cell type resembling yours. Physical particle counts are much higher and do not predict transduction, and comparing suppliers on unnamed titres compares nothing.

Why order a control construct in the same batch?

Because it shares the production, the purification and any contaminants. A control from another batch controls for the construct and not for the preparation.

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