There are now three ways to obtain AdEasy components.

Option #1 - Stratagene

See AdEasyT XL Adenoviral Vector System,

http://www.stratagene.com/displayProduct.asp?productId=536

Advantages:

(i) They provide vectors, not just bacterial stocks containing the

vectors, so you can immediately clone your insert and make adenoviruses.

(ii) They provide electrocompetent AdEasier-1 cells. Making competent

cells can be a pain.

(iii) They offer good technical support.

Cost of the components from Stratagene is $600 to $1000, depending on what

components you need.

(Note that Hopkins receives a small royalty on such sales).

Option #2 - ATCC

See http://www.atcc.org/SpecialCollection/AdEasy.cfm

Advantages:

(i) They are shipping experts

(ii) They do good quality control on the bugs they send.

ATCC ships bacteria containing the plasmids as well as

AdEasier-1 cells.

The total cost of the basic kit (Catalog no.

<http://www.atcc.org/SearchCatalogs/directdetail.cfm?collection=mb-kit&atccN

um=JHU-23> JHU-23), including shipping, is ~$200 to academic labs. and ~$250

to commercial labs.

(Hopkins does not receive royalties on such shipments).

ATCC also distributes a supplemental kit (Catalog no. JHU-24)

which is only useful if one needs to clone very large inserts.

Option #3 - Our lab

See www.coloncancer.org <http://www.coloncancer.org/>

Advantages: Free of charge.

Disadvantages: We only send only small quantities of bugs and our shipping

procedures and quality controls aren't as good as those of ATCC or

Stratagene.

My recommendations:

If your budget permits, Stratagene provides the reagents that are easiest to

use. If you have little experience with adenovirus construction, this is

definitely the best option.

Otherwise, ATCC is preferred because of the advantages noted above.

If even ATCC's prices poses a problem for your budget, e-mail me and we'll

mail you the components you want. Please list exactly those vectors you'd

like (selected from those on www.coloncancer.org), and include a shipping

address and phone number. If you're not in continental US, I'd strongly

advise the ATCC option as we often encounter problems when attempting to

ship outside US.

I hope the AdEasy system proves useful for your research.

Bert V.