UCLA

Techniques for targeted delivery of nucleic acids are important for biomedical applications of gene therapy. Here, we leverage platelet to specifically deliver plasmid DNA to the target cells. It is demonstrated in vitro that the platelets transfected with GFP-encoding plasmids can deliver plasmids to HepG2 cells. Furthermore, platelets tend to interact more with HepG2 cells during co-culture compared with HeLa cells. Platelets deliver plasmids to HepG2 cells by actin-dependent endocytosis, whereas both asialoglycoprotein receptors of HepG2 cells and GPIbα of platelets are not involved in this process. This study provides evidences that platelet can be potentially engineered for liver targeted plasmid DNA delivery.