Frontiers in Pharmacology (Apr 2020)

Nanobubble Mediated Gene Delivery in Conjunction With a Hand-Held Ultrasound Scanner

  • Hiroshi Kida,
  • Koyo Nishimura,
  • Koki Ogawa,
  • Akiko Watanabe,
  • Loreto B. Feril,
  • Yutaka Irie,
  • Hitomi Endo,
  • Shigeru Kawakami,
  • Katsuro Tachibana

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2020.00363
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11

Abstract

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Recent research has revealed that nanobubbles (NBs) can be an effective tool for gene transfection in conjunction with therapeutic ultrasound (US). However, an approach to apply commercially available hand-held diagnostic US scanners for this purpose has not been evaluated as of now. In the present study, we first compared in vitro, the efficiency of gene transfer (pCMV-Luciferase) with lipid-based and albumin-based NBs irradiated by therapeutic US (1MHz, 5.0 W/cm2) in oral squamous carcinoma cell line HSC-2. Secondly, we similarly examined if gene transfer in mice is possible using a clinical hand-held US scanner (2.3MHz, MI 1.0). Results showed that lipid-based NBs induced more gene transfection compared to albumin-based NBs, in vitro. Furthermore, significant gene transfer was also obtained in mice liver with lipid-based NBs. Sub-micro sized bubbles proved to be a powerful gene transfer reagent in combination with conventional hand-held ultrasonic diagnostic device.

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