LIPOSOME AND POLYLYSINE MEDIATED GENE-TRANSFER

Advances in molecular biology has improved our understanding of the ro le of genes in disease pathogenesis, Treating human diseases with gene s has now become a reality, The weak link in gene therapy is not the d rug (gene), but the vehicle used to deliver the gene. There are a numb er of vehicles available for gene transfer, however, only cationic lip osomes and polylysine conjugates come close to ideal. A variety of cat ionic lipids are synthesized so far but very few attempts are made to systematically evaluate the structure-activity relationsip. Here, we d iscuss structural variations occurring in cationic lipids and attempt to elucidate structure-activity relationship. A brief discussion about polylysine conjugates and mechanism of gene transfer is also presente d in the review.