Functional lipids and lipoplexes for improved gene delivery

Cationic lipids are the most common non-viral vectors used in gene delivery with a few currently being investigated in clinical trials. However, like most other synthetic vectors, these vectors suffer from low transfection efficiencies. Among the various approaches to address this challenge, functional lipids (i.e., lipids responding to a stimuli) offer a myriad of opportunities for basic studies of nucleic acid lipid interactions and for in vitro and in vivo delivery of nucleic acid for a specific biological/medical application. This manuscript reviews recent advances in pH, redox, and charge-reversal sensitive lipids. (C) 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.