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The delivery problem

Nature Biotechnology volume 24, pages 305–306 (2006)Cite this article

The solution, Debs says, is not figuring out how to put more DNA into a cell but to put more powerful DNA into a cell. “Rather than looking at the DNA carrier, we're looking at the DNA vector.” Finding the best vector will eventually mean figuring out, tissue by tissue and condition by condition, what regulates DNA delivery, cellular processing and, most of all, expression.

That understanding would improve not just liposome-mediated gene delivery, but also delivery of naked DNA and, in some cases, viral vectors. The type of delivery mode used, whether injection or electroporation or adsorption, will also depend on the target tissue. “Each target organ requires a very different gene delivery method,” says Jun-ichi Miyazaki, professor of stem cell regulation at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine (Osaka, Japan). In 1998, Miyazaki and colleagues transferred genes into muscle by delivering electric pulses close to the injection site of the plasmid DNA, increasing the rate of gene expression by about 1,000-fold over simple DNA injection3. But since electroporation won't work in inaccessible internal organs like the liver where blood flow quickly sweeps away injected DNA, other methods are necessary. “None of the current methods,” says Miyazaki “is sufficient in the specificity and duration of expression.”

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The delivery problem. Nat Biotechnol 24, 305–306 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0306-305b

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