Ballistic particle delivery

Particle bombardment, which is also often referred to as ballistic particle delivery, can be used to deliver nucleic acid into many cells simultaneously. In this procedure, gold or tungsten micro particles are loaded with nucleic acid and accelerated to high velocity to enable them to pass through cellular membranes and plant cell walls. By the variation of the ballistic parameters (e.g., particle size or acceleration speed), it is possible to transfect successfully adherent cell cultures including plant cells [12], This technology is widely used for genetic vaccination where local expression of the delivered DNA is sufficient to achieve effective immune response [13]. 

Schiffter, H., Condliffe, J., Vonhoff, S. (2010). Spray-freeze-drying of nano suspensions The manufacture of insulin particles for needle-free ballistic powder delivery. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 7, S483-S500. 

Kendall, M. A. F., Mitchell, T. J., Hardy, M. P., and Bellhouse, B. J. The ballistic delivery of high density, high velocity micro-particles into excised human skin, in Proceedings of Bioengineering Conference of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Snowbird, UT 2001. 

This technique, also referred to as biolistics (biology + ballistics), is a direct DNA delivery method developed by Sandford and co-workers [16-18]. This technique employs microprojectiles or high velocity particles coated with DNA to deliver exogenous genetic material into the target cell or tissue, which is subsequently in vitro cultured, and regenerated to produce mature transformed plants. 

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