A novel transfection method for mammalian cells using calcium alginate microbeads

The direct transfer of genetic materials into mammalian cells is an indispensable technique. We have developed calcium alginate (CA) microbeads which can deliver plasmid DNAs and yeast artificial chromosomes into plant and yeast cells. In this paper, we demonstrate the effective transfection of mammalian cells by CA microbeads immobilizing plasmid DNAs. The transfection was performed using the pEGFP-C1 plasmid containing the cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoter and enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) gene. The transient expression of EGFP was observed 24 h after transfection. The expression efficiency was maximum when the concentration of sodium alginate was 1% and the amount of plasmid DNA was increased to 100 microg. The expression efficiency of our method using CA microbeads is 2-10 times higher than that of the polyethylene glycol (PEG) method. Our results suggest that the CA microbead mediated transfection of mammalian cells effectively delivers genetic materials into mammalian suspension cells.