Nucleic acid drug delivery strategies without the lysosomal pathway

By regulating gene expression, nucleic acid drugs functioning in the cytoplasm or nucleus are of great significance in the treatment of acquired or inherited diseases and vaccine development.A variety of nucleic acid delivery vectors currently developed are suffering from low transfection efficiency due to endosome/lysosome entrapment.This paper introduces and summarizes the nucleic acid delivery strategies that bypass the endosomal/lysosomal pathway, including membrane translocation, membrane fusion, receptor/transporter-mediated non-endocytic uptake and caveolae-mediated endocytosis, and discusses the problems and challenges facing such strategies, aiming to facilitate the development of intracellular delivery of nucleic acid drugs bypassing lysosomal pathway.