Studying the in vitro behavior of cationic solid lipid nanoparticles as a nonviral vector

Several advanced in vitro studies have proved the broad potential of cationic solid lipid nanoparticles (cSLNs) as synthetic nucleic acid vectors that have been proposed as an alternative to liposomes. Certainly, results regarding their transfection performances [1] are encouraging but are sometimes not as good as expected, even though the carrier cytotoxicity is always quite low. It is hoped that in the coming years these carriers may allow for higher efficiency over delivery of gene materials and that the development of upscalable and reproducible production of stable systems can be harnessed successfully. Nanovectors already play a very important role in pharmaceutical applications for the delivery of drugs or other biologically active materials. Over the past couple of decades, the incredible number of in vitro studies in chemical and biological engineering on nanocarrier systems provide several important aspects that relate to optimization of particle structures and characterize the mechanisms by which these particles interact with cells, and describing their behavior at the cellular, biochemical and molecular level.