期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1990
卷号：87
期号：9
页码：3410-3414
DOI：10.1073/pnas.87.9.3410
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：We have developed a high-efficiency nucleic acid delivery system that uses receptor-mediated endocytosis to carry DNA macromolecules into cells. We accomplished this by conjugating the iron-transport protein transferrin to polycations that bind nucleic acids. Human transferrin, as well as the chicken homologue conalbumin, has been covalently linked to the small DNA-binding protein protamine or to polylysines of various sizes through a disulfide linkage. These modified transferrin molecules maintain their ability to bind their cognate receptor and to mediate efficient iron transport into the cell. The transferrin-polycation molecules form electrophoretically stable complexes with double-stranded DNA, single-stranded DNA, and modified RNA molecules independent of nucleic acid size (from short oligonucleotides to DNA of 21 kilobase pairs). When complexes of transferrin-polycation and a bacterial plasmid DNA containing the gene for Photinus pyralis luciferase are supplied to eukaryotic cells, high-level expression of the luciferase gene occurs, demonstrating transferrin receptor-mediated endocytosis and expression of the imported DNA. We refer to this delivery system as "transferrinfection."
