Construction of Minicircle Suicide Genes Coding for Ribosome-Inactivating Proteins.

Due to the lower risks of adverse effects, nonviral gene therapy is a suitable alternative to transfect cancer cells with a suicide gene to let them kill themselves by expressing toxic ribosome-inactivating proteins. Plasmids are stable and easy-to-produce vectors, but they have some disadvantages due to the bacterial backbone. Applying the minicircle technology, this problem can be solved with manageable effort in a well-equipped laboratory. With the described methodology, minicircle-DNA can be produced at low costs. The cell killing properties are monitored following transfection using the CytoSMART Omni system-a camera based live cell imaging device.