Cationic niosomes have become important non-viral vehicles for transporting a good number of small drug molecules and macromolecules. Growing interest shown by these colloidal nanoparticles in therapy is determined by their structural similarities to liposomes. Cationic niosomes are usually obtained from the self-assembly of non-ionic surfactant molecules. This process can be governed not only by the nature of such surfactants but also by others factors like the presence of additives, formulation preparation and properties of the encapsulated hydrophobic or hydrophilic molecules. This review is aimed at providing recent information for using cationic niosomes for gene delivery purposes with particular emphasis on improving the transportation of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), small interference RNAs (siRNAs), aptamers and plasmids (pDNA).

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Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) represent a modern approach for management of chronic skin injuries. In this work, we describe BM-MSCs application versus their conditioned media (CM) when delivered topically admixed with fibrin glue to enhance the healing of chronic excisional wounds in rats. Fifty-two adult male rats were classified into four groups after induction of large-sized full-thickness skin wound: control group (CG), fibrin only group (FG), fibrin + MSCs group (FG + SCs), and fibrin + CM group (FG + CM). Healing wounds were evaluated functionally and microscopically. Eight days after injury, number of CD68+ macrophages infiltrating granulation tissue was considerably higher in the latter two groups. Although—later—none of the groups depicted a substantially different healing rate, the quality of regenerated skin was significantly boosted by the application of either BM-MSCs or their CM both (1) structurally as demonstrated by the obviously increased mean area percent of collagen fibers in Masson's trichrome-stained skin biopsies and (2) functionally as supported by the interestingly improved epidermal barrier as well as dermal tensile strength. Thus, we conclude that topically applied BM-MSCs and their CM—via fibrin vehicle—could effectively improve the quality of healed skin in chronic excisional wounds in rats, albeit without true acceleration of wound closure.

Bone morphogenetic protein-7(BMP-7) plays a pivotal role in the transformation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into bone. However, its impact is hampered due to its short half-life. Therefore, gene therapy may be an interesting approach to deliver BMP-7 gene to D1-MSCs. In this manuscript we prepared and characterized niosomes based on cationic lipid 2,3-di(tetradecyloxy)propan-1-amine, combined with polysorbate 80 for gene delivery purposes. Niosomes were characterized and combined initially with pCMS-EGFP reporter plasmid, and later with pUNO1-hBMP-7 plasmid to evaluate osteogenesis differentiation. Additionally, specific blockers of most relevant endocytic pathways were used to evaluate the intracellular disposition of complexes. MSCs transfected with niosomes showed increased growth rate, enhanced alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP) and extracellular matrix deposition which suggested the formation of osteoblast-like cells. We concluded that hBMP-7-transfected MSCs could be considered not only as an effective delivery tool of hBMP-7, but also as proliferating and bone forming cells for bone regeneration.

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