ABSTRACT
The success of gene therapy is largely dependent on the development of a vector that delivers and efficiently expresses a therapeutic gene into an encoded protein in a specific cell population with minimal toxicity. Viral-directed gene delivery/therapy uses engineered recombinant viruses as gene carriers, exploiting a highly evolved and specialized process to deliver gene to the nucleus of a cell and its expression. Non-viral gene therapy represents a promising approach with respect to their simplicity, ease of large-scale production and lack of specific immune response. The system showed lower susceptibility to degradation by nucleases compared to the corresponding free oligonucleotides, high cellular uptake, and delivered the genes more efficiently compared to other commercial reagents. Quantum dots are generally inorganic semiconducting nanomaterials that, due to their physical size and composition, present bright fluorescence, narrow emission, broad UV excitation, and high photostability with numerous advantages over traditional organic dyes.
