A rapid and efficient polyethylenimine-based transfection method to prepare lentiviral or retroviral vectors: useful for making iPS cells and transduction of primary cells

To improve the efficiency, reproducibility and consistency of the PEI-based transfection method that is often used in preparation of recombinant lentiviral or retroviral vectors. The contributions to transfection efficiency of multi-factors including concentration of PEI or DNA, dilution buffer for PEI/DNA, manner to prepare PEI/DNA complexes, influence of serum, incubation time for PEI/DNA complexes, and transfection time were studied. Gentle mixing during the preparation of PEI/DNA transfection complexes is critical for a high transfection efficiency. PEI could be stored at room temperature or 4 °C, and most importantly, multigelation should be avoided. The transfection efficiency of the PEI-based new method in different types of cells, such as 293T, Cos-7, HeLa, HepG2, Hep3B, Huh7 and L02, was also higher than that of the previous method. After optimization, the titer of our lentiviral system or retroviral system produced by PEI-based new method was about 10- or 3-times greater than that produced by PEI-based previous method, respectively. We provide a rapid and efficient PEI-based method for preparation of recombinant lentiviral or retroviral vectors which is useful for making iPS cells as well as transduction of primary cell cultures.