Skip to main content
Log in

Transfection reflections: fit-for-purpose delivery of nucleic acids

  • Comment
  • Published:

From Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology

View current issue Sign up to alerts

Transfection is a foundational technology in biosciences, biotechnology, and the development of biotherapeutic agents. Given its transcendence, it is problematic that transfection remains a poorly understood and insufficiently characterized endeavour. Here we state the case for the urgent reworking of transfection as a fit-for-purpose technological foundation for the ambitions of scientists and engineers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

References

  1. Eisenstein, M. Enzymatic DNA synthesis enters new phase. Nat. Biotechnol. 38, 1113–1115 (2020).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Lipps, C. et al. Eternity and functionality — rational access to physiologically relevant cell lines. Biol. Chem. 394, 1637–1648 (2013).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Durymanov, M. & Reineke, J. Non-viral delivery of nucleic acids: insight into mechanisms of overcoming intracellular barriers. Front. Pharmacol. 9, 971 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Mancinelli, S. et al. Design of transfections: implementation of design of experiments for cell transfection fine-tuning. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 118, 4488–4502 (2021).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Kim, T. K. & Eberwine, J. H. Mammalian cell transfection: the present and the future. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 397, 3173–3178 (2010).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Chong, Z. X., Yeap, S. K. & Ho, W. Y. Transfection types, methods and strategies: a technical review. PeerJ. 9, e11165 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Fus-Kujawa, A. et al. An overview of methods and tools for transfection of eukaryotic cells in vitro. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. 9, 701031 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Di Blasi, R. et al. A call for caution in analysing mammalian co-transfection experiments and implications of resource competition in data misinterpretation. Nat. Commun. 12, 2545 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Synthego. An Inside Look at What’s Happening at the Benchtop - CRISPR benchmark report, Vol. 01 https://www.synthego.com/crispr-benchmark (accessed 13 April 2023).

  10. Faruqui, N. et al. Cellular metrology: scoping for a value proposition in extra- and intracellular measurements. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. 7, 456 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology (Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council, BB/M018040/1).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alistair Elfick.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Related links

The Cancer Genome Atlas: https://www.cancer.gov/ccg/research/genome-sequencing/tcga

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wells-Holland, C., Elfick, A. Transfection reflections: fit-for-purpose delivery of nucleic acids. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 24, 771–772 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-023-00627-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41580-023-00627-6

  • Springer Nature Limited

Navigation