ABSTRACT
Objective To approach the feasibility of transfecting the DNA plasmid of encoding red fluorescent protein directly into the nucleus of rabbit primary bone marrow stromal cell with recently developed nucleofection technique. Methods Rabbit primary bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) were harvested by means of density gradient centrifugation following a thighbone puncture. The primary BMSCs were cultured and either transfected to pDsRed1-N1 by nucleofectorTM technique (as DsRed group) or left uninfected(as control group) in vitro. The cellular viability, adhesive rate, the growth curves and the efficiency of transfection of both DsRed and control groups were analyzed. Result DsRed were successfully expressed at 48h after nucleofection. Similar morphology evolvement, adhesive rates and growth curves were obtained from the two groups. The positive DsRed expression enhanced gradually alone with a prolonged culturing time, and reached its peak value at the 10th day after marked, with about 54.2% of DsRed-positive cells in the total BMSCs. The DsRed did not attenuate even until 1 month following the mark. Conclusion Neuclofection of pDsRed1-N1 showed no significant effect on the proliferation of rabbit BMSCs. DsRed worked efficiently for the purpose of stable gene marking of rabbit BMSCs, and nucleofection is an efficient method for transferring genes into primary rabbit BMSCs.