Lipofection enhancement

To bridge this gap, liposomal transfection efficiency can be dramatically enhanced by the inclusion of peptides into the complex without increasing immunogenicity. Peptides can be selected to assist lipofection at each key stage of the process complex formation, cell targeting and uptake, endosomal disruption, and nuclear targeting. The purpose of this chapter is... 

Peptide modification of liposomes offers the potential for enhancing the packaging process and for enhancing each stage of the lipofection process, to ultimately improve transfection efficiency. 

Figure 1 Potential points for the enhancement of liposome-mediated gene transfer. The above diagram illustrates the characteristic lipofection pathway demonstrating the four key stages bold, underlined), complex formation, targeting and internalization, endosomal escape, and nuclear translocation. Indicated alongside (italic) are the peptides that can be used to augment the transfection potential of the liposome. Abbreviation pDNA, plasmid DNA.

Subramanian A, Ma H, Dahl KN, et al. Adenovirus or HA-2 fusogenic pep-tide-assisted lipofection increases cytoplasmic levels of plasmid in nondividing endothelium with little enhancement of transgene expression. J Gene Med 2002 4(l) 75-83. 

Lipofection efficiency by most of the cationic lipids is enhanced by the addition of the neutral lipid, dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE). DOPE promotes the fusion of lipid/DNA particles with the endosomal membrane, inducing their disruption and thus increasing the release of DNA into the cytosol... 

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