Nanoparticles for Gene Delivery into Stem Cells and Embryos

Abstract

Gene delivery is an important issue in embryo and stem cell studies for transgenic animal production, cell fate regulation, gene therapy, generation of patient-specific stem cells for cell-based therapy, cell tracing and imaging. Gene delivery has been classically achieved by a variety of methods that use a viral or a non-viral vector packaged with the nucleic acid of interest. In the last decade, several newer approaches to gene delivery have emerged that utilize nanomaterials to provide an efficient, safe and targeted gene delivery, both in vitro and in vivo. These nanomaterials, including polymeric nanoparticles, ceramic nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, polymeric micelles and dendrimers, modify the kinetics, distribution and release of the genes into the cells and, thereby, increase the efficiency of gene delivery. This chapter describes the available nanoparticle-based gene delivery systems and their utility in stem cells for maintaining self-renewal, pluripotency and/or targeted differentiation into specific cell types for cell-based therapy and/or gene therapy. The chapter further discusses and reviews the progress and future of nanoparticles for generation of transgenic animals via gene delivery into embryos – a research area that is yet to be fully explored.