Electroporation markedly improves Sleeping Beauty transposon-induced tumorigenesis in mice

• Published in: Cancer gene therapy Vol. 21; no. 8; pp. 333 - 339
• Main Authors: Jung, S, Choi, H-J, Park, H-K, Jo, W, Jang, S, Ryu, J-E, Kim, W-J, Yu, E-S, Son, W-C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Nature Publishing Group US 01-08-2014; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 13/51; 45/44; 59/78; 631/67/68; 64/110; 82/29; Animal experimentation; Animals; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Biopsy; Carcinogenesis; Cell Transformation, Neoplastic - genetics; Chromosomes; Disease Models, Animal; DNA Transposable Elements; Electroporation; Female; Gene Expression; Gene Therapy; Gene transfer; Gene Transfer Techniques; Genetic Vectors - genetics; Immunohistochemistry; Mice; Neoplasms - diagnosis; Neoplasms - genetics; Neoplasms - pathology; original-article; Phenotypes; Plasmids - administration & dosage; Plasmids - genetics; Positron-Emission Tomography; Transposition; Transposons; Tumor Burden; Tumorigenesis
• ISSN: 0929-1903; 1476-5500
• DOI: 10.1038/cgt.2014.33

The Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon system is an important tool for genetic studies. It is used to insert a gene of interest into the host chromosome, thus enabling permanent gene expression. However, this system is less useful in higher eukaryotes because the transposition frequency is low. Efforts to improve the efficacy of the SB transposon system have focused on the method of gene delivery, but although electroporation has recently attracted much attention as an
in vivo
gene delivery tool, the simultaneous use of electroporation and the SB transposon system has not been studied for gene transfer in mice. In this study, electroporation was used in a model of SB transposon-induced insertional tumorigenesis. Electroporation increased the rate of tumor development to three times that of the control group. There was no difference in phenotype between tumors induced with the SB transposon system alone and those induced by the SB transposon and electroporation. Electroporation therefore may be an efficient means of improving the efficacy of gene transfer via the SB transposon system.