Acufection-Mediated Delivery of Immune-Related Genes into Mouse Skin Tissues

Prepare an anesthetized genetically modified mouse lacking cytokine interleukin-15 expression.

Shave the dorsal flank skin and apply a hair removal cream to eliminate any remaining hair shafts, facilitating improved DNA infusion into the skin in subsequent steps.

Sterilize the dorsal skin surface and mark the target area for DNA transfer.

Apply a small drop of plasmid DNA encoding interleukin-15 to the marked surface.

Using an acupuncture needle bundle, repeatedly prick the marked skin surface.

The pricking motion of the needle bundle gently oscillates the skin surface, loosening the dead cells of the outermost skin layer.

Further, the oscillating needles scrape the plasma membranes of cells, promoting acufection, or acupuncture-mediated DNA delivery into the cells, including keratinocytes and dendritic cells.

Now, allow the mouse to recover.

Successfully transfected cells in the skin produce interleukin-15 proteins.