Sigma-Aldrich Introduces N-TER Nanoparticle siRNA Transfection System for Delivery of siRNA into Difficult-to-Transfect Cell Types

Sigma-Aldrich has announced the global release of the N-TER™ Nanoparticle siRNA Transfection System. N-TER allows researchers to reproducibly interrogate gene function, via siRNA transfection, in model cell types that have previously not been considered amenable to conventional lipid-based siRNA delivery reagents.

"Traditional lipid-based siRNA transfection reagents exhibit a number of drawbacks, including high cell death rates and a limited ability to deliver siRNA into a variety of cell types, such as primary, neuronal, differentiated, and nondividing cells," said Tim Fleming, Director of Global Commercial Marketing at Sigma-Aldrich.

"Our goal is to introduce a reagent into the scientific community that effectively bypasses these historic limitations and enables siRNA transfection to be performed in a wider variety of model systems," said Fleming.

The N-TER Nanoparticle siRNA Transfection System circumvents the limitations of lipid-based transfection reagents by relying on a stable nanoparticle, formed by the blending of siRNA and the N-TER peptide, to quickly enter into the cell's cytoplasm to deliver its siRNA cargo.

In addition, due to the reagent's stability, stocks of N-TER/siRNA Nanoparticles can be stored for long periods of time and used for subsequent transfections, increasing standardization and reproducibility in all transfection experiments targeting the same gene.

"Our research on the functions of West Nile Virus proteins involves looking at gene function in a number of different cell types," said Dr. Tom C. Hobman, Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Alberta. "We tested a number of siRNA delivery reagents before using N-TER. Once we tried N-TER, we were very impressed with its ability to reproducibly deliver siRNA into our cell types of interest, with minimal cellular toxicity."