Applied Biological Materials (abm) - Genetic Materials for Life Sciences & Drug Development - Distributed in the UK & Ireland by Caltag Medsystems
Genetic Materials by abm
abm is a world leader in recombinant viral technology, providing the most comprehensive collection of Lentiviral, AAV, Adenoviral Vectors and Viruses in ready-to-use formats, as well as vectors for mammalian or bacterial Protein Expression and ORF Vectors.
Expression-Ready cDNA Libraries
Lentiviral Vectors & Virus
As a leader in lentiviral technology, abm offers an affordable, comprehensive collection of human, mouse and rat genes cloned into ready-to-use lentiviral vectors or packaged recombinant lentivirus for gene over-expression studies within a wide range of host cells.
Advantages of the Lentivirus System:
- Large insert capacity (up to 9kb)
- High infection efficiency
- Broad host range (dividing, non-dividing, stem cells, and primary cells)
- Stable integration & expression of recombinant proteins
- Ideal for the creation of stable cell lines
AAV Vectors & Virus
abm offers a comprehensive collection of human, mouse and rat genes cloned into ready-to-use AAV vectors or packaged AAV virus (serotypes 1-11) for gene over-expression studies within a wide range of host cells.
Advantages of the AAV System:
- Used as a promising candidate for gene therapy
- Does not elicit significant immune responses in vivo
- Broad tropism – tissue specificity with different AAV serotypes
- No integration into the host genome
- Ability to transduce both proliferating and quiescent cells
- Long-term expression in non-dividing cells
Adenovirus
abm provides premade adenoviruses containing full-length ORFs for human, mouse, and rat genes for gene overexpression studies. Their standard Adenovirus Collection constructs contain the strong CMV promoter with the option of HA or His tags.
Advantages of the Adenovirus System:
- High transduction efficiency in most mammalian cells
- Low immunogenicity for high post-infection cell viability
- Non-integrating and no risk of disrupting host genes
- Broad host range (dividing, non-dividing, stem cells, and primary cells)
- High titres can be obtained
- Large insert capacity (up to 6 kb)
- A popular choice in vivo and in vitro applications
- Biosafety: abm use replication-incompetent (-E1/-E3) human adenovirus type 5 (Ad5).
siRNA
siRNAs are powerful tools for gene silencing and can be delivered to the target cell or host via a variety of methods, including ready-to-use lentivirus, AAV, adenovirus, or direct transfection of DNA plasmids or double-stranded RNA (dsRNA).
abm's unique convergent dual promoter system avoids the need to design hair-pin loop shRNA structures, streamlining cloning and knockdown of the target gene.
abm offers a comprehensive collection of human, mouse, and rat siRNAs pre-designed for the knockdown of your gene of interest.
miRNA
Inhibit or over-express any miRNA for studies of post-transcriptional gene regulation in mammalian systems using abm's ready-to-use lentiviral, AAV and synthetic viral vectors and packaged viruses.
ORF Vectors
abm offers an extensive collection of sequence-verified human, mouse and rat Open Reading Frame (ORF) genes, ready for insertion into your choice of vector expression system.
With the 5’UTR and 3’UTR removed, ORFs allow quick and reliable protein expression when inserted into a compatible expression vector. These vectors can also be used as template DNA for positive controls in PCR amplification experiments.
abm’s ORFs are cloned into a small non-viral vector containing a mutated stop codon to allow for the incorporation of a C-terminal tag or reporter if it is present in the recipient vector. Their ORF vectors are also available in ready-to-use expression vectors/viruses, including Lentivirus, AAV, Adenovirus and Protein formats.
circRNA
CircRNAs have been associated with human disease and can be used in over-expression studies to investigate new roles of circRNA in health.
abm's product line offers over 1000 circRNA overexpression vectors, purification kits and enzymes, including their unique RNase R enzyme.
circRNAs can be over-expressed in mammalian cells by using non-repetitive regions of reverse complementary sequences. These work to bring the exon-flanking portion of introns in close proximity, thus promoting back-splicing into circRNA.
Control Vectors & Viruses
At abm, they know that every experiment requires an appropriate control. Therefore, they offer a variety of vector and virus controls, including CRISPR Scrambled Controls, siRNA Scrambled Controls and Gene Expression Controls (empty control vectors) for all of their viral and non-viral expression systems.
CRISPR
CRISPR Knockout Vectors & Virus
abm's CRISPR Gene Knockout sgRNA vectors and viruses are highly effective at achieving knockout of your target gene.
Cas9 functions to create a double-stranded break within an early exon triggering repair via Non-Homologous End-Joining (NHEJ) mechanism resulting in deleterious frameshift mutations.
Abm offers a comprehensive collection of All-in-One (spCas9 and sgRNA expressing) and sgRNA-only expressing constructs targeting any human, mouse, or rat gene.
CRISPR Activation Vectors & Virus
abm's CRISPR Activation sgRNA vectors and viruses are highly effective at achieving the activation of your target gene.
CRISPR Activation (CRISPRa) allows for gene-specific up-regulation by using dCas9-VPR. This fusion protein consists of the catalytically dead Cas9 (dCas9) enzyme fused to the tripartite complex VPR (VP64, p65 and Rta).
Abm offers a collection of sgRNA-only lentiviral vectors expressing sgRNAs that target the upstream 5' UTR promoter region of any human, mouse or rat gene, thereby resulting in transcriptional up-regulation.
See all CRISPR Activation Vectors & Viruses
Cas9 Vectors & Virus
abm offers an extensive collection of Cas9 vectors and viruses, from spCas9 and saCas9 nucleases to null mutants and nickases, in a variety of viral delivery systems
Pair abm's Cas9 products with a compatible sgRNA expression vector/virus from their ready-to-use Genome-wide Gene Knockout Collection or Genome-wide Gene Activation Collection.
See all Cas9 Vectors & Viruses
Cas9 Proteins
CRISPR is the most versatile technology for genome editing, and abm offers the largest selection of Cas9 proteins for CRISPR experiments.
Cas9 Ribonucleoproteins (RNPs) are Cas9 proteins in complex with in vitro transcribed sgRNA. These RNPs can be used for in vitro pre-screening sgRNA candidates and can be directly transfected or electroporated into cells to achieve gene editing.
Advantages of the Cas9 RNP Delivery Method:
- No transcription or translation required – editing is rapid and transient
- No plasmid or virus is used – no risk of genome integration of Cas9/sgRNA machinery
- Proteins are compatible with a wide range of organisms – no need to consider promoters & codon optimisation
Additionally, abm is continually developing a range of CRISPR-Cas proteins, including popular variants like Cas12a, Cas12b, Cas13a, and Cas13b, while also advancing high-fidelity options for precise genetic editing.
Expression Systems
abm is a world leader in recombinant viral technology, providing the most comprehensive collection of AAV-, lenti-, adeno- and retro-viral cloning vectors in ready-to-use formats.
Recombinant Lentiviral Vectors
abm has developed a variety of recombinant lentiviral expression systems which can be used to express your gene of interest within a broad range of host cells.
This expression system is available in many combinations of different promoters, tag sequences and reporter genes, and multicistronic vectors, allowing for multiple gene expression from one single construct.
Recombinant AAV Vectors
The Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV) is the most promising candidate for virus-based gene therapy as it:
- Infects both dividing and non-dividing cells
- Has low immunogenicity and pathogenicity
- Can target a broad range of specific tissue types
- Provides long-term expression in non-dividing cells
abm's complete library of premade AAV vectors and prepackaged AAV particles for human, mouse, and rat genes come with a wide selection of promoters and reporters for every need.
Recombinant Adenoviral Vectors
Recombinant adenovirus is one of the most efficient gene delivery vehicles for both in vitro and in vivo protein expression due to the high infection efficiency and subsequent yield of recombinant protein.
Adenoviruses can infect a broad range of cells, including dividing and non-dividing cells, stem cells and primary cells, and are particularly useful for infecting cell lines that have low transfection efficiency with liposome-based methods.
Adenoviruses do not integrate their genome into the host system and therefore do not risk activating or inactivating host genes. Expression of the recombinant protein of interest is detectable within 24 hours post-infection and is transient in nature. The expression will persist as long as the viral genome is not degraded, which is around 1-2 weeks, depending on the cell type.
abm has developed a variety of different adenoviral expression systems which can be used to temporarily alter expression within a sample of cells or to monitor gene expression using reporter genes. These systems allow other scientists to produce their own adenoviruses.
Key features:
- Biosafety: Replication-incompetent (-E1/-E3) human adenovirus type 5 (Ad5)
- Almost 100% gene delivery in most cell types; very few cell lines cannot be infected
- Can be used for in vivo or in vitro recombinant protein expression
- Non-integrating; No alteration to host genome
Recombinant Retroviral Vectors
Retroviral vectors have proven to be useful tools for either in vitro or in vivo stable integration of a transduced gene into the host cell chromosome via the integration mechanisms that they normally employ during their normal life cycle.
One of the significant advances in retroviral expression systems in recent years is the production of high titre recombinant retrovirus by transient transfection. The improvement allows for the production of high-titre retroviruses within a week and eliminates the time-consuming process of generating a viral producer cell line.
abm's Retro-Easy™ retroviral expression system includes a comprehensive line of retroviral vectors with very flexible multiple cloning sites for easy subcloning of your gene of interest into any of our retroviral vectors. The His and HA fusion tag compatible vectors (pRetro-E1™-HA and pRetro-E2™-His) allow for fusion gene expression in retroviral vectors with either a His or HA tag.
Kits Related to Recombinant Virus
Viral Packaging Mixes
abm’s proprietary packaging mixes and highly efficient protocols are based on years of experience and permit the rapid production of recombinant viral particles with high titre and purity.
qPCR Virus Titre Kits
Get accurate titre results in only 1 hour with abm's collection of viral titre kits for adeno-associated virus (AAV), lentivirus, and retrovirus. Simple, sensitive, and ready-to-use, abm's viral titre kits contain their next-generation PCR Polymerases for the best enzyme performance on the market.
Virus Transduction Enhancers
ViralEntry™ is an effective lentivirus transduction enhancing reagent that increases transduction efficiency in diverse cell types by up to 10x.
AAViralEntry™ is also available for enhancing AAV transduction efficiency with low cell toxicity.
Read more about Virus Transduction Enhancers
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Virus Purification Kits
abm offers kits for the purification of recombinant Lentivirus. Their Ultra-Pure Lentivirus Purification Kit is an ion-exchange-based system, which minimises damage to the viral particles while enabling researchers to attain ultra-high titers. Alternatively, their Speedy Lentivirus Purification Kit is the quickest and easiest way to purify and concentrate lentiviral particles up to 100x with titres up to 107 IU/ml.