transient transfection - (Aug/13/2009 )

this may be a silly question. When we do transient transfection of a plasmid using lipofectamine, is it transfected into the cytoplasm but what allows it to enter the nuclear membrane? Likewise for luciferase reporter gene assays.

Hey SF,

I don't think your Q is silly at all. It's good to be inquisitive. Well, I have found a pdf article from Invitrogen which explains a little bit on how lipid-mediated transfection works. So, hope it helps

Autumn

It is generally agreed that thye disruption and re-organization of nuclear envelope during cell division is responsible for the majority nuclear entry of transfected plasmid, although DNA-associated nuclear proteins have some implications in facilitated nuclear translocation, esp for shorter DNA fragments.