question on virus infection efficiency - (Jan/24/2007 )

Hi,
I was wondering why lentiviruses and adnenoviruses have higher efficiency of infection and a broader range than retrovirus...

Both virus can infect cells that are not in cell cycling may account for higher efficiency. Other possibilities such as greater viral particle stability, the higher titers for both virus than retrovirus may also be the contributing factors.

Lentivirus is from the retrovirus family.

The possibilty that one is able to modify the envelope (to target specific cell types) of recombinant lentivirus gives them a higher infectivity.

Adenovirus have many serotypes, which gives them a range of cell types for infection efficiently. Also they are quite stable to various conditions making them easier to transport and easy to infect.