Dendritic and lipid-based carriers for gene/siRNA delivery (a review)

RNA-based therapeutics has emerged as a novel and powerful approach for targeting a broad range of human diseases. Currently, a number of RNA-based drugs are under clinical investigation. The development of such drugs, however, has been slow and encountered multiple challenges. The clinical progress of such therapeutics strongly depends on whether a delivery vehicle efficiently and safely directs the drug into the target cells. Among the variety of non-viral vectors, dendritic carriers are particularly attractive due to their unique molecular architectures, globular shape, and multivalent groups on their surface. Lipid-based vectors were among the earliest strategies used for gene transfection and they are the most studied carriers for siRNA delivery. However, so far only a few of such systems have been studied in vivo. This review focuses on the most widely studied dendritic as well as lipid-based carriers for gene/siRNA delivery. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.