An artificial cell system for biocompatible gene delivery in cancer therapy

Abstract

The gene therapy of cancer is generally recognized as a promising approach for the reversal of neoplastic progress of cancer cells. However, the lack of biocompatibility as well as highly available carriers is the bottleneck in gene therapy. In recent years, with the advances of understanding in cell signaling and cell based functions, the development of cell mimic carriers is showing great potential in evaluating the anticancer efficacy of drugs. Here in our study, an artificial cell (AC) system was fabricated to mimic the gene protection and transfection functions of cancer cells using cancer cell derived histone and membranes. As expected, the AC showed high biocompatibility as well as preferable gene transfection capability both in vitro and in vivo, and might be a promising tool for the flexible assembly of cell mimic systems in cancer therapy.