Delivery of molecules into corneal endothelium using nanoparticles activated by femtosecond laser pulses: proof of concept

Abstract : Purpose NanoFemtoTransfection (NFT) is an innovative and promising non-viral technique to transfer molecules into cells (Chakravarty. Nature Nanotechnology 2010;5:607). It consists in temporarily permeabilizing cell membrane by a photoacoustic effect obtained by nanoparticles of black carbon activated by Ti-Saphir femtosecond laser (fsL) pulses. Calcein (622 Da), tagged bovine serum albumine (70 kDa) and one eGFP plasmid (5 MDa) were transfected into two non-adherent cell lines (DU145 prostate-cancer and GS-9L rat gliosarcoma). Our aim was to adapt the NFT to adherent human corneal endothelial cells (HCEC)