Nonviral gene delivery to neural stem cells with minicircles by microporation.

The main purpose of this work was to evaluate the transfection of novel DNA vectors, minicircles (mC), on embryonic stem cell-derived neural stem cells (NSC). We demonstrated that by combining microporation with mC, 75% of NSC expressing a transgene is achieved without compromising cell survival, morphology, and differentiation potential. When comparing mC with their plasmid DNA (pDNA) counterparts, both gave rise to similar transfection levels but cells harboring mC showed 10% higher cell viability, maintaining 90% of survival at least for 10 days.