Reporter/Functional Gene Transfer in Rat Brain

Of the many methods and techniques for in vivo gene transfer, some have already been used in clinical trials. In most cases, genes are transferred into tissues using the infectivity of viral particles. However, viral systems have some known drawbacks (1 ,2 ). If an efficient and specific transfer method could be developed, naked plasmid DNA would be an ideal system for gene transfer. Plasmid-mediated methods would be economical and easy. Also, the transfer procedure could be easily repeated, as naked plasmid DNA has little antigenicity for the host (3 ,4 ).