A branched TAT cell-penetrating peptide as a novel delivery carrier for the efficient gene transfection

摘要

BackgroundCell penetrating peptides (CPPs) as one class of non-viral vectors, have been widely explored as a delivery tool due to their cell-penetrating capability with low cytotoxicity. However, CPPs have reported to have low gene transfection efficiency mainly due to the fact that DNA is larger than other biomolecules. On the other hand, the conventional linear CPPs are unstable for constructing the DNA complexes with it. Thus, here we designed a branched CPP using disulfide bridges based on the linear TAT peptide, to enhance the gene delivery efficiency in a better way.