Electric gene transfer to the liver following systemic administration of plasmid DNA

Recently, there has been an increasing level of interest in electroporation for gene delivery due to the site-specific nature of the delivery, as well as the high efficiency of the method. Electroporation involves the application of a pulsed electric field to cells to enhance cell permeability, resulting in the transit of exogenous polynucleotide across the cytoplasmic membrane. Electroporation is traditionally performed by locally injecting DNA to the site of interest followed by the application of electric field. Compared with the local injection of plasmid DNA to the liver, systemic injection has the advantage of delivering genes to more hepatocytes. We describe here a method for efficient gene transfer to the liver by electroporation following tail vein administration of the naked DNA. The cells expressing the reporter gene are more broadly distributed with this systemic injection, as compared with direct injection.