Unmet Need
· Production of gene therapies, cell therapies, and recombinant proteins are largely dependent on efficient transfection using viral vectors or nanoparticle vehicles to deliver genetic cargo. However, although numerous transfection reagents have been developed, many strategies still suffer from low efficiency in particular cell-lines or are limited by high cost. In addition, there are no methods that can increase transfection efficiency across all reagents and cell types. There is therefore a need for new strategies that can universally increase transfection efficiency across all cell-types and reagents.
Value Proposition
· Single media adjustment can increase transfection efficiency across various transfection vehicles, including viral vectors, lipid nanoparticles, and polyethyleneimine nanoparticles.
· Media adjustment can increase transfection efficiency even in hard-to-transfect cells.
Technology Description
· Researchers at Johns Hopkins have developed a technique to formulate cell-culture media to enhance intracellular delivery of various transfection reagents. They have discovered that by adjusting the viscosity of media with methylcellulose, the cellular uptake and transfection efficiency of lipid nanoparticles, polymer nanoparticles, and viral vectors complexed with either DNA or mRNA can be enhanced. In particular, increasing media viscosity within specific ranges specific to a given cell-type and transfection reagent can increase transfection efficiency, such as in the easy-to-transfect cell line HEK293T. Furthermore, adjusting the viscosity is shown to enhance transfection efficiency even on hard-to-transfect cancer and T-cell lines like B16F10, Jurkat, and MOLT-4. Overall, this study demonstrates that viscosity of cell culture media can be used to influence cellular uptake and transfection and presents a universal approach to enhance transfection efficiency independently of the delivery vehicle.
Stage of Development
· The technology is in the proof-of-concept stage
Data Availability
· Data available upon request
Publication
· N/A
