Gene (molecular) therapy is the key to fight against most of serious human disease. However, the safety of classic viral vectors which are used for gene transfection is still under debate, when they are used as a kind of gene medicine. This is the main barrier for the clinical application of viral vector. Recently, a review entitled “Uptake mechanisms of non-viral gene delivery”, written by Dr ZHANG Xiaoling from Laboratory of Orthopaedic Cellular and Molecular Biology, the Institute of Health Sciences (IHS), was published in Journal of Controlled Release, one of leading journals in drug control release and delivery research field.

Although, some chemical synthesized non-viral vectors are superior to viral vectors in safety aspect, it is difficult for them to delivery gene to the target cells in vivo, and then to be efficiently up-taken by cells. As a result, improving the delivery efficiency is the most important task before the non-viral gene delivery system can be used in clinical disease therapy. Recent years, the Laboratory of Orthopaedic Cellular and Molecular Biology has carried out series researches on application of non-viral gene delivery system in bone-related diseases therapy. Based on their study experience, the review article focused on the non-viral gene delivery system cellular up-taking mechanism and its research progress in recent years. This review article provides an important theoretical reference for the future cooperation of biologists and pharmacologists to design more efficient non-viral gene delivery system.

AUTHOR CONTACT:
ZHANG Xiaoling
Institute of Health Sciences,
Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences/
Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine
Tel: 021-63855434
E-mail: xlzhang@sibs.ac.cn

The cellular up-taking pathways of non-viral gene delivery system
(Image provided by Laboratory of Orthopaedic Cellular and Molecular Biology, IHS )