Cationic niosomes have become important non-viral vehicles for transporting a good number of small drug molecules and macromolecules. Growing interest shown by these colloidal nanoparticles in therapy is determined by their structural similarities to liposomes. Cationic niosomes are usually obtained from the self-assembly of non-ionic surfactant molecules. This process can be governed not only by the nature of such surfactants but also by others factors like the presence of additives, formulation preparation and properties of the encapsulated hydrophobic or hydrophilic molecules. This review is aimed at providing recent information for using cationic niosomes for gene delivery purposes with particular emphasis on improving the transportation of antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), small interference RNAs (siRNAs), aptamers and plasmids (pDNA).

Bone morphogenetic protein-7(BMP-7) plays a pivotal role in the transformation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into bone. However, its impact is hampered due to its short half-life. Therefore, gene therapy may be an interesting approach to deliver BMP-7 gene to D1-MSCs. In this manuscript we prepared and characterized niosomes based on cationic lipid 2,3-di(tetradecyloxy)propan-1-amine, combined with polysorbate 80 for gene delivery purposes. Niosomes were characterized and combined initially with pCMS-EGFP reporter plasmid, and later with pUNO1-hBMP-7 plasmid to evaluate osteogenesis differentiation. Additionally, specific blockers of most relevant endocytic pathways were used to evaluate the intracellular disposition of complexes. MSCs transfected with niosomes showed increased growth rate, enhanced alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP) and extracellular matrix deposition which suggested the formation of osteoblast-like cells. We concluded that hBMP-7-transfected MSCs could be considered not only as an effective delivery tool of hBMP-7, but also as proliferating and bone forming cells for bone regeneration.