Molecular therapeutics of cancer by means of electroporation-based transfer of siRNAs and EBV-based expression vectors

Abstract

A variety of gene transfer technologies have been devised as tools for functional analysis of genes as well as gene therapy and regenerative medicine. Electroporation enables efficient genetic transfection in vivo into various organs as well as tumors without the aid of any infectious viral vector, and has been applied to preclinical nonviral gene therapy approaches. The efficacies of transfection and expression can be further elevated when the electroporation procedure was used to deliver Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-based plasmid vectors that have characteristic artificial chromosome-like functions. Electroporation also facilitates delivery of synthetic short interfering RNA (siRNA) into some organs and tumors, potentially providing feasible strategies of RNAi-based molecular targeting therapy against various diseases including.