Skip to main content

Table 1 Pros and Cons analysis of the delivery methods. na: not applicable

From: Delivery systems of CRISPR/Cas9-based cancer gene therapy

System

Pros

Cons

Packaging

Size

Immunogenicity

Insertional Mutagenesis

Tissue/Cell Tropism

Ref.

AVs

High packing capacity

High immunogenic response

> 8 Kb

High

No

Yes

[14,15,16,17,18,19,20]

AAVs

Low immunogenic response, small viral particle size

Low packing capacity

⁓4.5 Kb

Tissue dependent

No

Yes

[14,15,16,17,18,19,20]

γ-Retroviruses

High packing capacity

Only dividing cells can be infected, genome integration of target sequence and high risk of oncogenic mutations

< 8 Kb

Moderate

Yes

Yes

[21]

LVs

Low

immunogenic response

Genome integration of target sequence and high risk of oncogenic mutations

< 8 Kb

Low

Yes

No

[22,23,24,25,26]

RNPs

Low

immunogenic response

Cells cannot be selected with antibiotics or fluorescent markers

na

Low

No

No

[27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36]

CPPs

No transfection reagents need to be used

Cas9 needs to be chemically conjugated to CPPs

na

CPP dependent

No

No

[37,38,39,40]

Exosomes

Low

immunogenic response, Self-accumulating in tumor mass

Low

efficiency of encapsulation, easily degraded

Exosome size dependent

Low

No

Yes

[41,42,43,44,45,46,47]

Nanoparticles

Can be conjugated with chemical or physical compounds

Difficult to use

na

Nanoparticle dependent

No

Nanoparticle dependent

[48,49,50,51,52,53]

Nanoclews

Release dependent on the microenvironment conditions

High immunogenic response

na

High

No

Nanoclew dependent

[54, 55]

IDLVs

Reduced risk of insertional oncogenic mutations

Genome integration of target sequence in non-dividing cells

< 8 Kb

Low

Only in non-dividing cells

No

[70]