Bioengineered silk gene delivery system for nuclear targeting.

Macromol Biosci

Department of Chemistry, Tufts University, 62 Talbot Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA.

Published: September 2014

Gene delivery research has gained momentum with the use of lipophilic vectors that mimic viral systems to increase transfection efficiency. Maintaining cell viability with these systems remains a major challenge. Therefore, biocompatible biopolymers that are designed by combining non-immunological viral mimicking components with suitable carrier are explored to address these limitations. In the present study, dragline silk recombinant proteins are modified with DNA condensing units and the proton sponge endosomal escape pathway is utilized for enhanced delivery. Transfection efficiency in a COS-7 cell line is enhanced compared to lipofectamine and polyethyleneimine (PEI), as is cell viability.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4419271PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mabi.201400113DOI Listing

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