High efficiency DNA transfer into mammalian and non-mammalian cells

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In addition to using whole animals, such as frogs, mice or fish, to answer biological questions, there are numerous cells from such animals that can be used on their own to ask different questions that might be possible with a whole animal. Many such in vitro cell lines exist and they are invaluable research tools as the variety of cell lines allows them to be used in complementary approaches to examine different cellular functions (migration, differentiation, signalling, transformation). The advent of genomic sequencing, CHIP screening, and other technologies, coupled with advances with imaging systems, has now fostered in an era of science, where there are opportunities to investigate a protein's function(s) as never before. However, despite advances, many useful cell lines have distinct and often quite low DNA transfer or transfection efficiencies. The ability to introduce exogenous DNA or RNA into a cell is pivotal to address many of the most pertinent questions as to how specific proteins function, and different cell lines have different abilities to take up exogenous DNA. This is problematic when the functions of proteins are compared between different cell lines. Indeed optimized transfection protocols that do exist for a given cell line are often unlike, and introduce variability when several cell lines are used and compared. As such, a high efficiency DNA transfer system that can be used for both mammalian and non-mammalian cell transfections would allow for standardization between cell lines, and would thus facilitate an integration of data.