Direct Gene Transfer and Vaccination Via Skin Transfection Using a Gene Gun

Gene gun technology provides a useful means for direct transfer of DNA or RNA constructs that can result in transgenic protein expression from gene expression vectors (1 –8 ). The system has been applied to a broad spectrum of experimental studies on transgenic research, gene therapy approaches, and genetic vaccinations (see Note 1 ). The technology was first reported by Yang et al. in 1990 (1 ) for in vivo and in vitro gene transfer into mammalian somatic tissues and was later extended to various ex vivo gene transfer systems, including excised tissue explants or clumps, organic tissues placed in culture vessels, and their derived primary cultures (9 ; see Note 2 ).