Characterization of plasmids and formulations for non-viral gene therapy

Analytical methods are described that provide a platform for systematically evaluating the effect of formulation variables in the development of DNA-lipid non-viral gene therapy complexes. The methods encompass those used to characterize the components, i.e., plasmid DNA and liposomes, as well as those applied to the complexes themselves. The focus is on physicochemical methods so that their parameters can be assessed in relationship to the functionality of the DNA-lipid complexes in vivo.