Background: The use of optimized delivery devices has been shown to enhance the potency of DNA vaccines. However, further optimization of DNA vaccine delivery is needed for this vaccine modality to ultimately be efficacious in humans. Methods: Herein we evaluated antigen expression and immunogenicity after intradermal delivery of different doses of DNA vaccines by needle or by the Biojector jet...

Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is a useful tool for the genetic modification in plants, although its efficiency is low for several plant species. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation has three major steps in laboratory-controlled experiments: the delivery of T-DNA into plant cells, the selection of transformed plant cells, and the regeneration of whole plants from the selected cells. Ea...

Tattooing is one of a number of DNA delivery methods which results in an efficient expression of an introduced gene in the epidermal and dermal layers of the skin. The tattoo procedure causes many minor mechanical injuries followed by hemorrhage, necrosis, inflammation and regeneration of the skin and thus non-specifically stimulates the immune system. DNA vaccines delivered by tattooing have b...

The skin is an attractive site for the delivery of nucleic acid-based drugs for the treatment of topical and/or systemic diseases as well as for DNA immunization. However, due to the barrier properties of the skin, the penetration of nucleic acids in or across the skin is limited. This review focuses on the chemical, biological or physical methods developed to enhance nucleic acid delivery into...

BACKGROUND Electrical pulses have been used to enhance uptake of molecules into living cells for decades. This technique, often referred to as electroporation, has become an increasingly popular method to enhance in vivo DNA delivery for both gene therapy applications as well as for delivery of vaccines against both infectious diseases and cancer. In vivo electrovaccination (gene delivery follo...

DNA transposon-based vectors have emerged as gene vehicles with a wide biomedical and therapeutic potential. So far, genomic insertion of such vectors has relied on the co-delivery of genetic material encoding the gene-inserting transposase protein, raising concerns related to persistent expression, insertional mutagenesis and cytotoxicity. This report describes potent DNA transposition achieve...

Applying nanotechnology to plant science requires efficient systems for the delivery of nanoparticles (NPs) to plant cells and tissues. The presence of a cell wall in plant cells makes it challenging to extend the NP delivery methods available for animal research. In this work, research is presented which establishes an efficient NP delivery system for plant tissues using the biolistic method. ...

To improve the performance of nanostructured calcium carbonate in gene delivery, a hydrophilic polysaccharide, alginate, was added to calcium carbonate co-precipitation systems to form alginate/CaCO(3)/DNA nanoparticles. The size and ζ-potential of the nanoparticles were measured by a zetasizer. Due to the existence of alginate chains which retarded the growth of calcium carbonate based co-prec...

BACKGROUND Haplosclerid marine sponges produce pore forming polyalkylpyridinium salts (poly-APS), which can be used to deliver macromolecules into cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the delivery of DNA, siRNA and lucifer yellow into cells mediated by poly-APS and its potential mechanisms as compared with other lipofection systems (lipofectamine and N4,N9-dioleoylspermine (LipoGen))...

Successful gene delivery to skeletal muscle is a desirable goal, not only for treating muscle diseases, but also for immunization, treatment of metabolic disorders, and/or delivering gene expression that can treat systemic conditions, such as bone metastatic cancer, for example. Although naked DNA uptake into skeletal muscle is possible, it is largely inefficient in the absence of additional ch...