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Adeno-associated virus (AAV) -based vectors are one of the most promising gene delivery vehicles in gene therapy. The most prominent advantage of AAV vectors is their outstanding safety profile. AAV is mildly immunogenic, which greatly reduces the incidence and intensity of cellular immune responses against transduced cells. In addition, AAV vectors are attractive as in vivo gene-delivery tools, because they are mostly non-integrating and can transduce a wide range of terminally differentiated tissues, allowing the long-term expression of the therapeutic payload. Gene therapy with AAV vectors has demonstrated safety and long-term efficacy in numerous trials across target organs, including the eye, liver, skeletal muscle and central nervous system.

Amerigo Scientific offers four categories of AAV antibodies for monitoring and optimizing entire AAV manufacturing processes.

AAV Capsid Protein Antibodies

The single-stranded genome of AAV contains three genes, Rep (Replication), Cap (Capsid), and Aap (Assembly). The AAV capsid is composed of three viral proteins VP1, VP2, and VP3 that are encoded by the Cap gene. Amerigo Scientific offers AAV capsid protein antibodies that recognize linear epitopes of the viral capsid proteins VP1, VP2 and VP3. The antibodies can be used to detect the expression levels of VP1, VP2 and VP3 in western blot, and also can be applied for protein localization or protein-protein interaction studies by chromatography, immunoprecipitation or immunofluorescence methods.

Cross Reactivity

The high sequence similarity of AAV capsid proteins allows the easy detection of proteins across serotypes.

AAV Particle Antibodies

AAV particle antibodies recognize conformational epitopes present only on the fully assembled capsids. These epitopes consist of distant amino acids from the same protein or from different proteins in close proximity.

The AAV particle antibodies can be used to track the location of virus particles, identify protein-protein interactions, purify AAV particles using affinity chromatography, determine AAV capsid titers, and analyze the condition of AAV particles. In addition, the antibodies also can be used as positive controls for neutralization assays with patient sera.

Human Chimeric AAV Antibodies

Anti-AAV antibodies can be produced in potential clinical subjects due to naturally occurring AAV infection. These antibodies may interfere with gene delivery by the AAV vector, and gene therapy may be unsafe or ineffective. To ensure that clinical subjects are not put at unnecessary risk, it is necessary to test patient serum when selecting subjects for clinical trials of AAV vector-based gene therapy.

Amerigo Scientific offers human chimeric AAV antibodies used as reliable assay controls for the detection of AAV antibodies in human serum. The chimeric antibodies are based on an exclusive portfolio of neutralizing anti-AAV mouse monoclonal antibodies, and they have the same variable region. But the human chimeric AAV antibodies contain a human Fc region, which allows them to be recognized by anti-human second antibodies and ensures comparability with human serum antibodies.

Cross Reactivity

AAV Replicase Antibodies

The AAV Rep gene encodes four non-structural proteins that play a crucial role in AAV genome replication and packaging. Among the four Rep proteins, the large Rep proteins Rep78 and Rep68 have site-specific and strand-specific endonuclease activities, DNA-RNA and DNA-DNA helicase activities, and DNA-binding functions, so Rep78 and Rep68 are necessary for viral replication and site-specific integration into the host genome. The small Rep proteins Rep52 and Rep40 are required for genome packaging.

Amerigo Scientific offers antibodies that react with the four Rep proteins Rep78, Rep68, Rep52 and Rep40. The AAV replicase antibodies can be used to monitor AAV Rep gene expression levels, control AAV DNA packaging efficiency, check AAV infection status or DNA replication, and detect viral protein contamination in purified AAV capsid preparations.