Non-viral vectors based on cationic niosomes and minicircle DNA technology enhance gene delivery efficiency for biomedical applications in retinal disorders

Low transfection efficiency is a major challenge to overcome in non-viral approaches to reach clinical practice. Our aim was to explore new strategies to achieve more efficient non-viral gene therapies for clinical applications and in particular, for retinal diseases. Cationic niosomes and three GFP...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Gallego , Idoia, Villate Beitia, Ilia, Martínez-Navarrete, Gema, Menéndez, Margarita, López-Méndez, Tania, Soto-Sánchez, Cristina, Zárate, Jon, Puras, Gustavo, Fernández, Eduardo, Pedraz, José Luis
Format: article
Publication Date:2019
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche
Repository:REDIUMH. Depósito Digital de la UMH
OAI Identifier:oai:dspace.umh.es:11000/34590
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/11000/34590
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:non-viral vector
niosomes
minicircle
transfection
gene therapy
retina
Description
Summary:Low transfection efficiency is a major challenge to overcome in non-viral approaches to reach clinical practice. Our aim was to explore new strategies to achieve more efficient non-viral gene therapies for clinical applications and in particular, for retinal diseases. Cationic niosomes and three GFP-encoding genetic materials consisting on minicircle (2.3 kb), its parental plasmid (3.5 kb) and a larger plasmid (5.5 kb) were combined to form nioplexes. Once fully physicochemically characterized, in vitro experiments in ARPE-19 retina epithelial cells showed that transfection efficiency of minicircle nioplexes doubled that of plasmids ones, maintaining good cell viability in all cases. Transfections in retinal primary cells and injections of nioplexes in rat retinas confirmed the higher capacity of cationic niosomes vectoring minicircle to deliver the genetic material into retina cells. Therefore, nioplexes based on cationic niosomes vectoring minicircle DNA represent a potential tool for the treatment of inherited retinal diseases.