Researchers deliver transcription factors into specific tissue of a living animal for the first time

A team of researchers affiliated with the University of California has for the first time, delivered transcription factors into specific tissue of a living animal. In their paper published in the journal Nature Materials, the team describes how they built on prior research to come up with a new technique that allowed for the breakthrough. 

Transcription factors are proteins that are in charge of turning genes on and off—they bind to sections of DNA and regulate the process of transcription of DNA into mRNA and by extension, the proteins that are expressed. Scientists have long wished for a way to send transcription factors to specific parts of the body because it would allow for positive things to happen, such as boosting production of proteins that are known to help suppress tumors—all without permanently altering DNA.

But finding a way to make it happen has been difficult because in order to work, transcription factors must make their way into cells, no easy feat because cells have built-in protection systems.

Four years ago a team of researchers made progress by gluing a transcription factor to a strand of DNA that matched those of targeted cells—they were able to successfully inject the transcription factor into living cells in a Petri dish. In this new effort, the researchers have expanded on that idea, they used a matched DNA strand as a type of scaffold to allow for carrying, in addition to the transcription factor, other molecules helpful in penetrating a cell's defenses, and also, some that help get the material to the part of the body being targeted: in this case, liver cells. The team calls the complex they made, DNA assembled recombinant transcription factor (DART).