Cancer gene therapy utilized ultrasound (US)-sensitive liposome as non-viral vector

Abstract

Sonoporation is an attractive technique to develop non‐invasive and non‐viral gene delivery system. However, simple sonoporation using only ultrasound (US) is not enough to establish effective cancer gene therapy because of low efficiency of gene delivery. Therefore, we improved this problem by the combination of US and novel US‐sensitive liposome (Bubble liposome) which was a liposome containing US imaging gas (perfluoropropane). This was an effective gene delivery system with collapse (cavitation) that was induced by US exposure to Bubble liposome. In this study, we assessed the ability of this system in cancer gene therapy using IL‐12 cording plasmid DNA. The combination of Bubble liposomes and ultrasound was dramatically suppressed tumor growth. Therefore, we concluded that the combination of Bubble liposomes and ultrasound would be a good non‐viral vector system in IL‐12 cancer gene therapy.