Lipid-based carriers represent the most widely used alternative to viral vectors for gene expression and gene silencing purposes. This class of non-viral vectors is particularly attractive for their ease of synthesis and chemical modifications to endow them with desirable properties. Despite combinatorial approaches have led to the generation of a large number of cationic lipids displaying different supramolecular structures and improved behavior, additional effort is needed towards the development of more and more effective cationic lipids for transfection purposes.

With this review, we seek to highlight the great progress made in the design of each and every constituent domain of cationic lipids, that is, the chemical structure of the headgroup, linker and hydrophobic moieties, and on the specific effect on the assembly with nucleic acids. Since the complexity of such systems is known to affect their performances, the role of formulation, stability and phase behavior on the transfection efficiency of such assemblies will be thoroughly discussed. Our objective is to provide a conceptual framework for the development of ever more performing lipid gene delivery vectors.

基于脂质的载体代表了用于基因表达和基因沉默目的的病毒载体的最广泛使用的替代品。这类非病毒载体特别有吸引力，因为它们易于合成和化学修饰以赋予它们所需的特性。尽管组合方法已导致大量阳离子脂质的产生，这些阳离子脂质显示出不同的超分子结构和改进的行为，但仍需要更多的努力来开发用于转染目的的越来越有效的阳离子脂质。

通过这篇综述，我们试图强调在阳离子脂质的每个组成域的设计方面取得的巨大进步，即头部基团、接头和疏水部分的化学结构，以及对与核酸组装的具体影响。酸。由于已知此类系统的复杂性会影响其性能，因此将彻底讨论配方、稳定性和相行为对此类组件转染效率的作用。我们的目标是为开发性能更高的脂质基因递送载体提供一个概念框架。