Efficient and non-toxic gene transfer to cardiomyocytes using novel generation amplicon vectors derived from HSV-1

Conclusions. - Helper-free amplicon vectors very efficiently transduce genes into cardiomyocytes. Our results indicate similar or better transduction efficiencies than those reported using other vector systems. Furthermore, the very high transgenic capacity of amplicon vectors (up to 150 kbp) makes these vectors a unique and very suitable system to transduce large genomic sequences into cardiomyocytes.