Delivery of DNA to Skin by Particle Bombardment

Particle bombardment or particle-mediated DNA-delivery technologies were developed as physical gene-transfer methods for various in vivo, ex vivo, or in vitro applications. The basic concept is to directly deliver naked DNA plasmids into target cells by using accelerated particles as physical carriers. This technology was first established in plant gene-transfer systems and described as “biolistic (biological ballistic)” in 1987 by Sanford and colleagues (1 ,2 ). Based on the same concept, helium-driven gene-gun systems have been developed, such as the Accell gene gun by Agracetus, Inc. (3 -6 ) and the Helios gene-gun system commercially available at Bio-Rad Laboratories. In this chapter, the Bio-Rad gene-gun system is used as a model to describe the delivery of DNA to skin by particle bombardment and the parameters affecting such gene transfer.