Nonviral delivery systems are safe and easy to Selleck ABT737 apply, but suffer

from low transfection efficiency and transient gene expression [3]. Although methods such as cationic polymers could enhance the gene transfection in vitro [1], the results of in vivo studies were still not so satisfactory because targeting vectors have to overcome chemical and structural barriers to reach cells [4]. Therefore, non-viral gene transfer has low efficiency in vivo and transfection with intravenously administered plasmid DNA is difficult [5]. More recently, in order to elevate the transfection efficiency of non-viral vector system, microbubble and the Wortmannin ic50 sonoporation inducted by ultrasound could be used to increase the uptake of plasmid DNA targetedly [6–9]. Ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction (UTMD), as a means of stimulating cell membrane permeabilisation for the purposes of transferring plasmid DNA or drug into cells, has offered advantage over viral technologies [10–12]. When UTMD was combined with cationic polymers or liposome, the gene transfection efficiency had been markedly improved [4, 11, 13–16]. However, most studies with this technology have mainly used reporter gene to show transfection rather than efficacy in cancer BV-6 research buy gene therapy. Survivin,

the smallest member of the mammalian inhibitors of the apoptosis protein (IAP) family [17, 18], is upregulated in various malignancies to protect cells from apoptosis [18, 19], which justifies its role as a rational target for cancer therapy [20]. RNA interference (RNAi) is a potent and convenient technique, and is widely used in the applications such as gene function analysis [7, 21, 22]. RNAi mediated survivin knock-down in different cell lines caused increased apoptosis rates and cell cycle arrest, reduced viability and clonogenic survival as well as chemosensitization and radiosensitization [20, 23, 24]. In contrast to chemically synthesized, sequence-specific Celecoxib double-stranded short interference RNA (siRNA), short-hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression vectors could be used to establish stable gene expression, and could be a powerful tool for anticancer

therapy [21, 22]. Apoptosis induction by shRNA targeting survivin represents an efficient, novel strategy for cancer gene therapy [25–27]. These shRNA expression vectors could be deliveried by UTMD systems, but related study was rare [28]. For this purpose, in this present study, gene transfer of tumor xenografts in nude mice was performed through intravenous injection using the method of the combination of UTMD and polyethylenimine (PEI). We also tested the effects of gene silencing and apoptosis induction with shRNA interference therapy targeting human survivin by this novel technique. The result showed that, transfection efficiency was significantly improved and provided a new way for in vivo cancer gene therapy. Materials and methods Preparation of Plasmid DNA pCMV-LUC (7.4 kb) was constructed by cloning the luciferase gene from the pGL3-Promoter Vector (5.