TerplexDNA gene carrier system targeting artery wall cells

The development of non-viral gene carrier systems becomes more urgent and i mportant due to the major biosafety considerations involved with applicatio n of viral vector systems for clinical gene therapy. We recently developed a novel non-viral gene carrier system, termed TerplexDNA, which showed high gene transfer efficiency when compared to the lipofectamine gene delivery system both in HepG2 and A7R5 cell lines in vitro. In present studies, we d emonstrated that the TerplexDNA gene carrier system specifically delivered the reporter genes (LacZ and Luciferase) and therapeutic gene (hrVEGF(165) cDNA) into bovine aortic artery wall cells (endothelial cells and smooth mu scle cells) by receptor mediated endocytosis. We found that the transfectio n efficiency to these primary artery wall cells, when mediated by the Terpl exDNA system, was dose-dependent, saturable and was significantly inhibited by excess free LDL. The transfection efficiency of the TerplexDNA gene car rier system was approximately 60-fold higher than that of the lipofectamine gene carrier system. The TerplexDNA gene carrier system is a useful and pr omising tool for artery wall gene transfer. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.