In Vivo Transfection Reagents:
Although transfection reagents
which are usually positively charged vectors expose high gene transfer activity in
vitro,
systemic administration of such particles is rather restricted. After tail vein injection
of different positively charged lipo- and polyplexes into mice, complexes were
rapidly cleared from the circulation and mainly accumulated in the lung due to
the unspecific binding with extracellular components.
A cartoon showing shielded
GenJet™ Plus transfection reagent for in vivo DNA transfection
To eliminate the unspecific interaction
between cationic nonviral vector with blood components in circulation, we
utilized GenJet™ Plus reagent as backbone and cross-linked a shielding peptide
(SP) with amine group of neutral lipid of the backbone. The initial
testing results showed that administration of shielded GenJet™ Plus did not
induce erythrocyte aggregation. Instead systematic injection of shielded
GenJet™ Plus led to enhanced systematic circulation with significant improvement
of renilla luciferase expression in lung, spleen and liver compared with control GenJet™
Plus without shield peptide.
