Research

Novel non-viral method for transfection of primary leukemia cells and cell lines

Frank Schakowski¹ , Peter Buttgereit¹ , Martin Mazur¹ , Angela Märten² , Björn Schöttker³ , Marcus Gorschlüter¹ and Ingo GH Schmidt-Wolf¹

¹  Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik I, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, Germany

²  Present address: Chirurgische Klinik, Universität Heidelberg, Germany

³  Present address: Med. Klinik, Universität Würzburg, Germany

author email corresponding author email

Genetic Vaccines and Therapy 2004, 2:1doi:10.1186/1479-0556-2-1

Published:	12 January 2004

Abstract

Background

Tumor cells such as leukemia and lymphoma cells are possible targets for gene therapy. However, previously leukemia and lymphoma cells have been demonstrated to be resistant to most of non-viral gene transfer methods.

Methods

The aim of this study was to analyze various methods for transfection of primary leukemia cells and leukemia cell lines and to improve the efficiency of gene delivery. Here, we evaluated a novel electroporation based technique called nucleofection. This novel technique uses a combination of special electrical parameters and specific solutions to deliver the DNA directly to the cell nucleus under mild conditions.

Results

Using this technique for gene transfer up to 75% of primary cells derived from three acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients and K562 cells were transfected with the green flourescent protein (GFP) reporter gene with low cytotoxicity. In addition, 49(+/- 9.7%) of HL60 leukemia cells showed expression of GFP.

Conclusion

The non-viral transfection method described here may have an impact on the use of primary leukemia cells and leukemia cell lines in cancer gene therapy.