The Application of Nanoparticles for Gene Vector in Tumor Gene Therapy

Abstract

Development of safe and effective carriers is one of the major difficulties for gene therapy. Commonly used carriers for gene delivery can be classified into two categories: viral carriers and non-viral carriers. Nanoparticles gene carrier of various different kinds of materials, which belong to non-viral carriers, are paid attentions widely for its advantages such as low toxicity and immunogenicity, good biocompatibility, easy to produce, and a promising perspective for application in tumor gene therapy. The nanoparticles have a high stability in organisms and cells, which was difficult to be degraded. Nanoparticles can improve transfection efficiency. As a nonviral gene vector, the application of nanoparticles in gene therapy became research focus. In this article, we mainly reviewed the recent studies of the characteristics of nanoparticles, characteristics and transport mechanism of nanoparticles as gene vector, the progress on nanoparticles as gene vector in tumor gene therapy.