Methods for Transfecting Cells with Nucleic Acids of Animal Viruses

Abstract

Somewhat arbitrarily, I have grouped the transfection methods into three classes: hypertonic; insoluble facilitator; and polycation. In actuality, however, these classes may be overlapping to some extent. Moreover, this classification ignores two cell-handling procedures which have been used only sparingly and which do not particularly fit into any one of these classes. These two procedures are: (a) pre-treatment of the cultured vertebrate cells with ultraviolet light (Huppert and Sanders 1958) and (b) pre-treatment of the cells at an elevated but sub-lethal temperature (42 °C for one hour) (Moscarello 1965). In addition, this classification of transfection methods is probably, in certain respects, an oversimplification: for example, the major reason for the effectiveness of the dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) method, here classified as a hypertonic method, may not be simply the hypertonicity of the DMSO solution used.