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Gene Delivery By Negatively Charged Ternary Complexes Of Dna, Cationic Liposomes And Transferrin Or Fusigenic Peptides, Sérgio Simões, Vladimir Slepushkin, R. Caspar, Maria C. Pedroso De Lima, Nejat Düzgüneş

All Dugoni School of Dentistry Faculty Articles

Potential problems with the use of viral vectors for gene therapy necessitate the development of efficient nonviral vectors. The association of transferrin, or the pH-sensitive peptide GALA, with cationic liposomes composed of 1,2-dioleoyl-3-(trimethylammonium) propane and its equimolar mixture with dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine, under conditions where the liposome/DNA complex is negatively charged, drastically increased luciferase expression from pCMVluc. The percentage of cells transfected, measured by β-galactosidase expression, was also increased by about 10-fold. The zeta potential of the ternary complexes was lower than that of the liposome/DNA complexes. Transfection activity of positively charged complexes was also enhanced by association with transferrin, GALA or …