Fig 6. Effect of different solutions on the transfection efficiency of lipoplexes.

Lipoplexes were prepared in OpiMem but diluted in sodium chloride solution (0.9%). A fraction of the complexes was kept apart and used as a non-nebulised control. The rest of the solution was aerosolized for 5 minutes by employing a PARI Boy® Nebulizer and collected. 100 ng of IVT mRNA encoding Metridia luciferase were complexed with 1.2 μl of Lipofectamine and subsequently added per well. Nebulised and non-nebulised complexes were incubated with 16HBE cells for 2 h. Luciferase activity in 50 μl of supernatants was assayed every 24 h till the relative light units measured with a luminometer dropped below 100. The media on the cells were replaced daily after collecting samples for analysis. Enzyme activity is expressed in relative light units. n = 5; *p < 0.01.