What is the difference between a lentivirus and a retrovirus?
Lentiviruses are a subtype of retrovirus. The main difference between lentiviruses and standard retroviruses from an experimental standpoint is lentiviruses are capable of infecting non-dividing and actively dividing cell types whereas standard retroviruses can only infect mitotically active cell types. This means that lentiviruses can infect a greater variety of cell types than retroviruses. Both lentiviruses and standard retroviruses use the gag, pol, and env genes for packaging. However, the isoforms of these proteins used by different retroviruses and lentiviruses are different and lentiviral vectors may not be efficiently packaged by retroviral packaging systems and vice versa.
