Introduce gene into many cells by creepage discharge method*

Gene therapy, including cell medicine, is an excellent method that offers new therapy against incurable diseases. However, since general gene transfer methods are not free from cell damage, the establishment of safe gene therapy cells is desired.

In addition, gene therapy requires tens of millions of transduced cells. Therefore, there is a need for a technology that enables high-efficiency, high-volume batch processing.

We are studying the surface discharge method, which can introduce genes into many cells by plasma processing, with a view to practical applications in advanced medicine such as gene therapy. We have already established the surface discharge method, which is capable of the process for many cells in a 3.5 cm dish with high-introducing efficiency. 

In this study, we tried to optimize the electrode arrangement and examined the introduced area to expand the introduced area of the surface discharge method. We attempted to introduce a plasmid expressing AcGFP (green fluorescence protein) into L-929 in a 10 cm dish by the surface discharge method. As a result, we achieved a six times larger introduction area with a 10 cm dish than a 3.5 cm dish. Through this research, we expect that the surface discharge method can easily produce a large number of cells for gene therapy.