title: Progress toward a synthetic virus : a multicomponent system for liver-directed DNA delivery.
abstract: Vectors for gene transfer can be categorized as viral and nonviral. The advantages of nonviral carriers are their ease of preparation and scale-up, flexibility regarding the size of DNA to be transferred, and safety in vivo. Despite these advantages, nonviral vectors need to be further optimized for their efficiency is generally low. Thus, the future of non-viral vectors will be dependent on the possibility of creating synthetic efficient systems. A possible and reasonable approach is to develop artificial nucleic acid carriers that incorporate functional elements mimicking viruses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bio-organic Chemistry, Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: B H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: G Y
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Wu