Abstract

Viral vectors have been extensively used in gene therapy applications. However, some challenges remain due to low viral transduction efficiency on certain tissues and cell types. To address this issue, many additives have been applied to reduce the toxicity and enhance the transduction efficiency such as polymers, lipids, peptides and polycationic compounds. It was known that polycationic additives such as protamine sulfate and polybrene enhance the transduction efficiency, whereas anionic molecules such as pyran and heparin inhibit the transduction efficiency. However, in this study, we found that when we used lower concentrations of heparin and its lower molecule analogues, we observed a significant increase in transduction efficiency in immune cells. These findings encourage us to conduct more investigations to understand the function that these compounds play in enhancing the viral uptake and the transduction efficiency.