ABSTRACT
In order to study the important factors involved in cationic liposome-mediated gene transfer, Lipofectamine 2000 or DOTAP was evaluated using three types of cells (Hep-2, MCF-7 and SW-480) in vitro transfection efficiencies. Different properties of the two reagents were analyzed and compared by DNA arrearage assay and MTT assay. Both Lipofectamine 2000 and DOTAP had strong capability to combine with DNA; Lipofectamine 2000 can get higher transfection efficiency of the three cells by using GFP as report gene, meanwhile, DOTAP can also get higher transfection efficiency against Hep-2 cell. However, DOTAP showed lower transfection efficiency against MCF-7 and SW-480 cell. On the other hand, the cytotoxicity assay showed that over 85% cell viability of MCF-7 cell could be achieved both by Lipofectamine 2000 and DOTAP under the optimal transfection condition. Relatively speaking, Lipofectamine 2000 has very high transfection efficiency in a broad range of cell lines, but because of the special selectivity of cell type on liposome, DOTAP also has a broad application prospect.