How can lentiviral vectors be used to make stable cell lines?
Lentiviral vectors can be used to make stable cell lines in the same manner as standard retroviral vectors. That is, many lentiviral vectors have selectable markers, such as the puromycin resistance gene, conferring resistance to antibiotics. When these antibiotics are added to the growth medium, they kill off any cells that have not incorporated the vector and those cells that survive can be expanded to create stable cell lines which have incorporated the vector and express the insert. Many lentiviral transfer vectors do not have selectable markers conferring resistance to an antibiotic, but do express some other maker such as GFP. A researcher can use FACS to separate cells expressing fluorescent and other types of markers and later expand these cells into a cell line.
