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Gene therapy continues to hold promise in treating a variety of inherited and acquired diseases. The great majority of gene therapy trials rely on viral vectors for gene transduction because of their high efficiency. Non-viral vectors for gene delivery are receiving increasing attention for application in a wide variety of gene mediated therapies for humans. Polycationic polymers have been increasingly proposed as potential vectors because of their versatility. Rigidity, hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity, charge density, biodegradability, and molecular weight of the polymer chain are all parameters that in principle can be adjusted to achieve an optimal complexation with DNA. Polymers with repeating polyester bonds in the backbone are structurally versatile and biodegradable through hydrolysis, and possibly enzymatic digestion at the ester linkages under physiological conditions. These biodegradable polyesters are appealing for biological and pharmaceutical applications because of their potential bioc...

Gene therapy is a powerful treatment for inborn and acquired diseases. The development of safe and effective gene delivery systems is a great challenge to make the human gene therapy a reality. Viral vectors have been commonly employed due to the high transfection efficiency, however, their application to the human body is often frustrated by immunogenicity, potential infectivity, complicated production, and inflammation. Non-viral vectors have been widely proposed as safer alternatives to viral vectors by reason of unique advantages such as less immune reaction against repeated administration, ease of synthesis, cell/tissue targeting, unrestricted plasmid size, and low cost. Among non-viral systems, cationic polymers have gained increasing attention because they can easily form self-assembly with DNA. Polyethylenimine (PEI) is one of the most popular cationic polymers investigated in non-viral gene therapy due to its ability to generate elevated levels of gene expression in vitro and in vivo comp...