Gene Delivery

Abstract

To address different diseases, gene therapy is considered to be a powerful tool and, so far, it has been applied in various organs and tissues. However, less attention has been paid to gene delivery to skin despite the fact that skin is an easy-to-access tissue compared with others. One of the main restrictions is the skin barriers prevent diffusion of biomacromolecules and so the efficiency will fall dramatically. Gene therapy uses a carrier, by which a genetic material is carried into the targeted cell, and the cargo leads to an alteration in gene expression and reverses a pathological process. In this regard, different strategies have been employed for gene delivery, including physical gene delivery and non-viral and viral vectors. In this chapter, the main focus is on gene delivery to skin tissue for therapy and regeneration through various strategies. Although the results are promising, there are several potential pitfalls that must be addressed to improve the safety profile in order to make gene therapy clinically widespread.