Combinational use of lipid-based reagents for efficient transfection of primary fibroblasts and hepatoblasts

Commercially available lipid-based transfection reagents are widely used to deliver DNA to cells. However, these lipid-based transfection reagents show poor gene transfer efficiency in primary cells. Here, we demonstrate a simple method to improve gene transfer efficiency in primary fibroblasts and hepatoblasts using a combination of lipid-based transfection reagents. Our data show that combined use of Lipofectamine LTX and FuGENE HD increases the efficiency of gene transfer compared with the use of either reagent alone, and this combination achieves the best result of any pairwise combination of Lipofectamine LTX, FuGENE HD, TransFectin, and Fibroblast Transfection Reagent.