Cationic lipid-DNA complexes for gene therapy: Understanding the relationship between complex structure and gene delivery pathways at the molecular level

Cationic liposomes (CLs) are used as gene vectors (carriers) in worldwide human clinical trials of non-viral gene therapy. These lipid-gene complexes have the potential of transferring large pieces of DNA of up to 1 million base-pairs into cells. As our understanding of the mechanisms of action of CL-DNA complexes remains poor, transfection efficiencies are still low when compared to gene delivery with viral vectors. We describe recent studies with a combination of techniques (synchrotron x-ray diffraction for structure determination, laser-scanning confocal microscopy to probe the interactions of CL-DNA particles with cells, and luciferase reporter-gene expression assays to measure transfection efficiencies in mammalian cells), which collectively are beginning to unravel the relationship between the distinctly structured CL-DNA complexes and their transfection efficiency. The work described here is applicable to transfection optimization in ex vivo cell transfection, where cells are removed and returned to patients after transfection. CL-DNA complexes primarily form a multilayered sandwich structure with DNA layered between the cationic lipids (labeled L-alpha(C)). On rare occasions, an inverted hexagonal structure with DNA encapsulated in lipid tubules (labeled HIIC)is observed. A major recent insight is that for L-alpha(C) complexes the membrane charge density sigma(M) of the CL-vector, rather than the charge of the cationic lipid alone, is a key universal parameter that governs the transfection efficiency of L-alpha(C) complexes in cells. The parameter sigma(M) is a measure of the average charge per unit area of the membrane, thus taking into account the amount of neutral lipids. In contrast to L-alpha(C) complexes, H-II(C) complexes containing the lipid 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycerophosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE) exhibit no dependence on sigma(M). The current limiting factor to transfection by cationic lipid vectors appears to be the tight association of a fraction of the delivered exogenous DNA with cationic cellular molecules, which may prevent optimal transcriptional activity. Future directions are outlined, which make use of surface-functionalized CL-DNA complexes suitable for transfection in vivo.