Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Mechanisms Of Gene Transfer Mediated By Lipoplexes Associated With Targeting Ligands Or Ph-Sensitive Peptides, Sérgio Simões, Vladimir Slepushkin, Pedro Pires, Rogério Gaspar, Maria C. Pedroso De Lima, Nejat Düzgüneş

All Dugoni School of Dentistry Faculty Articles

Association of a targeting ligand such as transferrin, or an endosome disrupting peptide such as GALA, with cationic liposome-DNA complexes ('lipoplexes') results in a significant enhancement of transfection of several cell types. Although these strategies can overcome some of the barriers to gene delivery by lipoplexes, the mechanisms by which they actually enhance transfection is not known. In studies designed to establish the targeting specificity of transferrin, we found that apo-transferrin enhances transfection to the same extent as transferrin, indicating that internalization of the lipoplexes is mostly independent of transferrin receptors. These observations were reinforced by results obtained from competitive …