Abstract
For clinical applications of genes and nucleic acids as medicines, a development of delivery technology is a major challenge. Recently, various delivery systems controlled physical energies, such as ultrasound, pressure, electric force, magnetic force, electric force, and light, have been developed. In particular, there is an increasing interest in ultrasound-mediated gene and nucleic acid delivery due to its safety. The use of ultrasound in combination with nano/microbubbles allows for enhanced effects not only of imaging but also of gene and nucleic acid delivery. We developed lipid bubbles entrapping an ultrasound contrast gas and evaluated the efficacies of lipid bubbles as tools for gene and nucleic acid delivery. In this review, we describe current knowledge and future perspectives of ultrasound theranostics, which refers to the combination of diagnosis and therapy, and discuss the feasibility of lipid bubbles for therapeutic delivery of genes and nucleic acids.
