Nature Biotechnology2020ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
David N. Nguyen, Theodore L. Roth, P. Jonathan Li, Peixin Amy Chen, Ryan Apathy, Murad R. Mamedov, Linda T. Vo, Victoria R. Tobin, Daniel Goodman, Eric Shifrut, Jeffrey A. Bluestone, Jennifer M. Puck, Francis C. Szoka, Alexander Marson
CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing in clinically relevant primary cells is limited by inefficient homology-directed repair (HDR) and cytotoxicity of exogenous DNA. Improvements are needed to increase editing efficiency, cell viability, and generalizability across cell types for adoptive cell therapies and research. tCTS…
Read the article →ACS Applied Bio Materials2020ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Coralie M. Backlund, Christopher R. Hango, Lisa M. Minter, Gregory N. Tew
Intracellular protein and antibody delivery is limited by inefficient carriers, high toxicity, and a frequent requirement for serum-free conditions, especially in difficult-to-transfect cells such as immune cells, stem cells, and neurons. A simple noncovalent carrier that works in complete media and across diverse…
Read the article →International Journal of Nanomedicine2020ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
CAR-T cell therapy is limited by complex manufacturing, viral vector use, high cost, and severe toxicities. A nonviral, transient CAR modification approach using self-assembled nanoparticles could provide a simpler, safer, and potentially broadly applicable alternative for T-cell engineering. Formulation screening…
Read the article →Science Translational Medicine2020ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Xueguang Lu, Lei Miao, Wenting Gao, Ziqi Chen, Kevin J. Mchugh, Yehui Sun, Zachary Tochka, Stephanie Tomasic, Kaitlyn Sadtler, Alain Hyacinthe, Yuxuan Huang, Tyler Graf, Quanyin Hu, Morteza Sarmadi, Robert Langer, Daniel G. Anderson, Ana Jaklenec
STING agonists require frequent intratumoral injections over months to achieve efficacy, leading to poor patient adherence, repeated disruption of the tumour microenvironment, increased metastasis risk, and limited applicability to hard-to-reach tumours. A single-injection delivery system that mimics multiple dosing…
Read the article →Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology2020ResearchDrug Delivery
Serkan Yaman, Harish Ramachandramoorthy, Gizem Oter, Daria Zhukova, Tam Nguyen, Manoj K. Sabnani, Jon A. Weidanz, Kytai T. Nguyen
Melanoma is an aggressive skin cancer with limited treatment efficacy due to non-specific drug targeting, severe side effects, and multidrug resistance. Current cell-based immunotherapies are costly, complex, and carry long-term autoimmune risks. There is a need for a targeted, biocompatible drug delivery system that…
Read the article →Nature2019ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Haig Aghajanian, Toru Kimura, Joel G. Rurik, Aidan S. Hancock, Michael S. Leibowitz, Li Li, John Scholler, James Monslow, Albert Lo, Wei Han, Tao Wang, Kenneth Bedi, Michael P. Morley, Ricardo A. Linares Saldana, Nikhita A. Bolar, Kendra Mcdaid, Charles-Antoine Assenmacher, Cheryl L. Smith, Dagmar W
Fibrosis is observed in nearly every form of myocardial disease and contributes to heart failure, yet clinical interventions targeting fibrosis remain limited. No therapies directly target excessive cardiac fibrosis, and very few interventions improve cardiac function in patients with impaired compliance. Genetic…
Read the article →Biomaterials Science2019ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Brynn R. Olden, Emmeline Cheng, Yilong Cheng, Suzie H. Pun
T cells are an important target for ex vivo gene delivery and editing, but most commercial reagents cannot transfect them and cationic polymers show only moderate success. The specific intracellular barriers limiting non-viral gene delivery to human T cells are poorly understood, hindering rational polymer design…
Read the article →American Journal of Translational Research (Am J Transl Res)2019ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
CAR-T cell therapy relies mainly on retroviral/lentiviral vectors, which carry risks of carcinogenicity and complex manufacturing. PiggyBac transposon systems offer a safer, simpler non-viral alternative for stable transgene expression, but primary T lymphocytes are difficult to transfect efficiently. A polymeric…
Read the article →Nature Communications2018ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Ewoud B. Compeer, Felix Kraus, Manuela Ecker, Gregory Redpath, Mayan Amiezer, Nils Rother, Philip R. Nicovich, Natasha Kapoor-Kaushik, Qiji Deng, Guerric P.B. Samson, Zhengmin Yang, Jieqiong Lou, Michael Carnell, Haig Vartoukan, Katharina Gaus, Jérémie Rossy
Polarized endocytic recycling of the T cell receptor (TCR) to the immunological synapse is essential for T cell activation, yet the cellular mechanisms that coordinate internalisation of surface receptors with sustained delivery back to the plasma membrane remain incompletely understood. The role of flotillins in…
Read the article →Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)2018ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Ole A. W. Haabeth, Timothy R. Blake, Colin J. Mckinlay, Robert M. Waymouth, Paul A. Wender, Ronald Levy
mRNA-based cancer vaccination is a promising approach for personalised immunotherapy, but safe and effective mRNA delivery remains a major challenge due to mRNA's instability and poor cell membrane permeability. While lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are the primary delivery strategy, they have limitations with respect to…
Read the article →International Journal of Molecular Sciences2018ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Simon A. B. Riedl, Alexander Raup, Patrick Kaiser, Christopher V. Synatschke, Valerie Jérôme, Ruth Freitag
Genetic modification of human T lymphocytes is critical for both basic research and emerging therapies (e.g., CAR-T cells), but established non-viral methods are highly inefficient. Linear polyethylenimine (l-PEI), the "gold standard" for non-viral transfection of mammalian cells, achieves only single-digit…
Read the article →PNAS2018ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Colin J. Mckinlay, Nancy L. Benner, Ole A. Haabeth, Robert M. Waymouth, Paul A. Wender
Efficient mRNA delivery to lymphocytes remains a major unmet need for immunotherapy and vaccinology. Current methods rely largely on physical transfection such as electroporation, which is ex vivo, costly, and inefficient; chemical vectors generally achieve low lymphocyte mRNA transfection, especially in vivo. Lead…
Read the article →Journal of Controlled Release2018ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Brynn R. Olden, Yilong Cheng, Jonathan L. Yu, Suzie H. Pun
CAR T cell immunotherapy requires efficient ex vivo gene delivery to primary human T cells, but viral vectors have limitations including cost, cargo size, insertional mutagenesis risk, and manufacturing complexity. Non-viral cationic polymers are attractive alternatives but historically show low gene transfer…
Read the article →Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE)2018ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Elana Ben-Akiva, Kelly R. Rhodes, Randall A. Meyer, Jordan J. Green
Artificial antigen-presenting cells (aAPCs) are promising for immune modulation, and anisotropic (ellipsoidal) particles have shown improved T-cell stimulation over spherical particles. However, widely used methods for generating anisotropic particles, such as thin-film stretching, can be difficult to implement…
Read the article →Nature Communications2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
H.F. Moffett, M.E. Coon, S. Radtke, S.B. Stephan, L. Mcknight, A. Lambert, B.L. Stoddard, H.P. Kiem, M.T. Stephan
Therapies based on genetically engineered immune cells (CAR T cells, HSCs) are transforming medicine, but the viral and electroporation methods used to create these cytoreagents are complex, expensive, and time-consuming. There is a growing need for transient "hit-and-run" genetic programming (transcription factors…
Read the article →PLOS ONE2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Susanne Przybylski, Michaela Gasch, Anne Marschner, Marcus Ebert, Alexander Ewe, Gisa Helmig, Nadja Hilger, Stephan Fricke, Susanne Rudzok, Achim Aigner, Jana Burkhardt
Nanoparticle-based gene delivery methods are promising for transfecting immune cells, but their impact on basic immune functions such as proliferation—a cornerstone of cellular immunity—has not been systematically investigated. Understanding whether transfection reagents non-specifically influence immune cell…
Read the article →Nature Nanotechnology2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Tyrel T. Smith, Sirkka B. Stephan, Howell F. Moffett, Laura E. Mcknight, Weihang Ji, Diana Reiman, Emmy Bonagofski, Martin E. Wohlfahrt, Smitha P. S. Pillai, Matthias T. Stephan
Adoptive T cell therapy with CAR-engineered T cells has shown impressive clinical results, but the ex vivo manufacturing process is complex, expensive, and requires specialised facilities, limiting widespread application. A method to programme circulating T cells directly in vivo with tumour-recognising capabilities…
Read the article →Nature Communications2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Daniela Schmid, Chun Gwon Park, Christina A. Hartl, Nikita Subedi, Adam N. Cartwright, Regina Bou Puerto, Yiran Zheng, James Maiarana, Gordon J. Freeman, Kai W. Wucherpfennig, Darrell J. Irvine, Michael S. Goldberg
Systemic immune stimulation for cancer immunotherapy is associated with autoimmune-type pathologies, as the doses required to break immune tolerance can invoke undesired host-vs.-host effects. Targeting endogenous immune cell subsets in the circulation—which actively migrate into tumours—could concentrate…
Read the article →Biomaterials2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Yoshizaki Y, Yuba E, Sakaguchi N, Koiwai K, Harada A, Kono K
Efficient cancer vaccine carriers need both antigen delivery to dendritic cells (DCs) and DC activation. Previous pH-sensitive polymer-modified liposomes delivered antigen to DC cytosol but had limited adjuvant potency, and combining cationic lipid TRX with MPLA reduced antitumor effects, suggesting a need for…
Read the article →Biomaterials2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Shi Gn, Zhang Cn, Xu R, Niu Jf, Song Hj, Zhang Xy, Wang Ww, Wang Ym, Li C, Wei Xq, Kong Dl
Whole tumour cell lysates (TCL) are a broad source of tumour antigens for cancer vaccines, but soluble TCL is unstable, poorly taken up by dendritic cells (DCs), and inefficient at inducing cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses. A delivery system was needed to protect TCL antigens, target DCs, and enhance antigen…
Read the article →Nanoscale2016ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Joshua J. Glass, Daniel Yuen, James Rae, Angus P. R. Johnston, Robert G. Parton, Stephen J. Kent, Robert De Rose
Investigations of nanoparticle targeting to immune cells are conventionally restricted to monocultured cell line models that lack the complexity of primary human blood cell populations, including non-specific association with, and competition from, diverse cell types. A more physiologically relevant system using…
Read the article →Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine2016ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Sara Palchetti, Daniela Pozzi, Cristina Marchini, Augusto Amici, Cristina Andreani, Caterina Bartolacci, Luca Digiacomo, Valentina Gambini, Francesco Cardarelli, Carmine Di Rienzo, Giovanna Peruzzi, Heinz Amenitsch, Rocco Palermo, Isabella Scrapanti, Giulio Caracciolo
Nonviral DNA delivery remains inefficient, and the barriers limiting transfection are incompletely understood. The study investigates multicomponent cationic liposome/DNA lipoplexes to identify an additional transfection barrier and improve delivery, especially in hard-to-transfect cells. MC cationic liposomes: 78.8…
Read the article →Molecular Therapy2016ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Ans De Beuckelaer, Charlotte Pollard, Sandra Van Lint, Kenny Roose, Lien Van Hoecke, Thomas Naessens, Vimal Kumar Udhayakumar, Muriel Smet, Niek Sanders, Stefan Lienenklaus, Xavier Saelens, Siegfried Weiss, Guido Vanham, Johan Grooten & Stefaan De Koker
mRNA vaccines are promising for inducing cytolytic CD8⁺ T cell responses, and lipoplex carriers improve mRNA delivery to dendritic cells. However, the innate factors that regulate T cell induction by mRNA lipoplex vaccines remain unresolved. In particular, type I interferons (IFNs) are induced by mRNA but can either…
Read the article →ACS Nano (Just Accepted Manuscript)2015ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Jian Xiang, Ligeng Xu, Hua Gong, Wenwen Zhu, Chao Wang, Jun Xu, Liangzhu Feng, Liang Cheng, Rui Peng, Zhuang Liu
Dendritic cell (DC)-based immunotherapy requires efficient antigen delivery into DCs, DC maturation, and migration to draining lymph nodes, but real-time tracking of DC migration remains challenging with traditional methods (e.g., FITC painting). While upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) offer advantages for sensitive…
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