Non-viral gene delivery methods

Gene delivery has attracted increasing interest as a highly promising therapeutic method to treat various diseases, including both genetic and acquired disorders. Viral-vectors based gene delivery can achieve higher transduction efficiency and long-term gene expression, but they may be associated with some shortcomings, such as immunogenicity, carcinogenicity, poor target cell specificity, inability to transfer large size genes and high costs. Non-viral approaches show high potential due to advantages of relative safety, ability to transfer large size gene, less toxicity and easiness for preparation etc. However, the clinical application of non-viral methods is still restricted by some limitations including low transfection efficiency and poor transgene expression. In order to improve gene transfer efficacy, a lot of efforts have been made in the past years, and numerous gene carriers and techniques have been developed. In this review, we summarized the features, drawbacks and prospects of existing and emerging non-viral gene delivery methods.