For a variety of reasons, including production limitations, potential unanticipated side effects, and an immunological response upon repeated systemic administration, virus-based vectors are as yet not ideal gene delivery vehicles, justifying further research into alternatives. Unlike viral vectors, non-viral vectors pose minimal health risks, but to meet therapeutic requirements their efficacy...

There have been rapid advances in the development of non-viral techniques for gene transfer. Although viruses are highly evolved to infect mammalian cells, they have several limitations. The general theme is to mimic the advantageous components of viral systems whilst separating them from their limiting functions. The systems described here are broadly divided into true non-viral techniques and...

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) supports the growth and survival of dopaminergic neurons. CNS gene delivery currently relies on invasive intracerebral injection to transit the blood-brain barrier. Non-viral gene delivery via systematic transvascular route is an attractive alternative because it is non-invasive, but a high-yield and targeted gene-expressed method is still lack...

background: mehr-80 is a newly established adherent human large cell lung cancer cell line that has not been transfected until now. this study aims to define the optimal transfection conditions and effects of some critical elements for enhancing gene delivery to this cell line by utilizing different non-viral transfection procedures. methods: in the current study, calcium phosphate (cap), deae-...

Objective(s): First, 10-bromodecanoic acid was covalently attached to all available surface primary amines of PPI G2 and G3 to increase their lipophilicity. In the subsequent step, PPIs were conjugated to the alkylcarboxylate groups of alkylcarboxylate-PPI derivatives to increase the number of surface primary amines. Physicochemical properties of modified PPIs were determined. Transfection expe...

Gene therapy, the correction of dysfunctional or deleted genes by supplying the lacking component, has long been awaited as a means to permanently treat or reverse many genetic disorders. To achieve this, therapeutic DNA must be delivered to the nucleus of cells using a safe and efficient delivery vector. Although viral-based vectors have been utilized extensively due to their innate ability to...

Gene therapy is often referred to as transfer of transgenes into the somatic cells of a patient to obtain a therapeutic effect .One of the goals for all such therapies is efficient and safe delivery of the desired extrinsic genes into target cells, thereby increasing the therapeutic efficiency (Robson & Hirst, 2003). This has been a major obstacle in gene therapy experiments (Sarbolouki et al.,...

Chapter 1 describes the barriers that have hindered the effective use of gene delivery and a literature review of methods designed to overcome those barriers. Areas of gene delivery that will be discussed include viral, physical, and non-viral methods of gene delivery. A special focus will be on methods to target gene delivery vehicles and more specifically the somatostatin receptor 2 (SSTR2) t...