08 August 2017 2 10K Report

I obtained a plasmid from a lab down the hall. The lab has never used the plasmid before. They just happened to have it. It's labelled pMSCV-STAT6. I looked up similarly named plasmids on addgene and they're retroviral plasmids (for packaging retroviruses). However, what's confusing is the person who gave me the plasmid told me this is for packaging lentiviruses. My PI said I can't just tell a plasmid from its name. People just name plasmids randomly. So I'm really confused here. Is there a way to tell? Like if there's a particular sequence present in the plasmid that's unique to retroviral vectors or lentiviral vectors, and I can just sequence that region to determine if it's for packaging retroviruses or lentiviruses. Thanks. 

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