Advances in Magnetofection Magnetically Guided Nucleic Acid Delivery: a Review

Abstract

During the last decade, nanomagnetic methods for delivering and targeting nucleic acids have been developed which are often referred to as magnetofection. Nucleic acids carry the building plans of living systems. As such, they can be exploited to make cells produce a desired protein, or to shut down the expression of endogenous genes or even to repair defective genes. Hence, nucleic acids are unique substances for research and therapy. To exploit their potential, they need to be delivered into cells which can be a challenging task in many respects. Magnetofection provides a novel tool for high throughput gene screening in vitro and can help to overcome fundamental limitations to gene therapy in vivo. Magnetofection is nucleic acid delivery to cells, supported and site-specifically guided by the attractive forces of magnetic fields acting on nucleic acid shuttles (vectors) which are associated with magnetic nanoparticles. In a magnetofection procedure, self-assembling complexes of enhancers like cationic lipids with plasmid DNA or small interfering RNA (siRNA) are associated with magnetic nanoparticles and are then concentrated at the surface of cultured cells by applying a permanent inhomogeneous magnetic field.