Polymeric nanoparticles for gene delivery

Abstract

Since the evolution of the concept of gene therapy, delivering therapeutic genes to the diseased cells has been a major challenge. Although viral vectors have been shown to be efficient in delivering genes, the issue of their safety is still to be solved. Meanwhile, the field of developing nonviral expression vectors has seen considerable progress. As compared with viruses, these are relatively safe but are confronted with the problem of poor transfection efficiency. With the growing understanding of the biology of gene transfection, and the continued efforts at enhancing the efficiency of nonviral expression vectors, it could soon become a preferred option for human gene therapy. In this review, the potential of polymeric nanoparticles as a gene expression vector is discussed. Furthermore, the importance of understanding the pathophysiology of disease conditions in developing gene expression vectors is discussed in Section 6.

Keywords::

• conjugates
• gene delivery
• gene expression
• gene therapy
• polymers
• targeting

Acknowledgements

Grant support from the National Institutes of Health (EB003975) and a predoctoral fellowship to JK Vasir from the American Heart Association, Heartland Affiliate. The authors thank Elaine Payne and DeAnna Loibl for providing administrative support

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