Abstract
Lacrimal gland acinar cells are an important cell type to study due to their role in production and release of tear proteins, a function essential for ocular surface integrity and normal visual acuity. However, mechanistic studies are often limited by problems with transfection using either plasmid DNA or siRNA. Although various gene delivery methods are available, many have been unproductive due to consistently low transfection efficiencies. We have developed a method using nucleofection that can result in 50% transfection efficiency and 60% knockdown efficiency for plasmid DNA and siRNA, respectively. These results are vastly improved relative to previous studies, demonstrating that nucleofection offers an efficient transfection technique for primary lacrimal gland acinar cells.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the National Institutes of Health for support for this work through RO1 EY017293 awarded to SHA and a Ruth L. Kirchstein Predoctoral Fellowship (F31 EY08807) to JC.
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The authors declare no competing interests.
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Contreras, J., Hsueh, PY., Pei, H. et al. Use of nucleofection to efficiently transfect primary rabbit lacrimal gland acinar cells. Cytotechnology 64, 149–156 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10616-011-9404-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10616-011-9404-3