Conclusions
Overall, this study shows that Lipofectamine can be used to transfect a moderately high percentage of Jurkat cells (51±9.7%) but a much lower fraction (8.1±0.8%) of primary T cells. Nonetheless, this modest transfection efficiency may still be suitable for the generation of CAR-T cells, since some studies using lentiviral vectors have obtained complete responses with transduction efficiencies as low as 2.3% CAR+ T cells.81 In either case, our results emphasize that cellular uptake (due to a lack of HSPGs) and an increased risk of apoptosis induced by the PYHIN DNA sensors AIM2 and IFI16 are two particularly important issues that should be considered in the development of both viral and non-viral gene delivery methods for T cells.