Polyethylenimine, a cost-effective transfection reagent

Abstract

In search for a cheap and effective transfection reagent we used the positively charged polyplex-forming compound polyethylenimine (PEI). This compound is commercially available from different companies either as a non-modified chemical reagent or with additives as a more cost intensive transfection reagent. Here we used the non-modified PEI reagent to optimize transfection protocols for different cell-lines. With these optimized conditions we were able to transiently transfect a number of cell-lines up to 40–90%.