Viral and Nonviral Transfer of Genetic Materials to Adipose Tissues: Toward a Gold Standard Approach

Gene transfer using viral or nonviral vectors enables the ability to manipulate specific cells and tissues for gene silencing, protein overexpression, or genome modification. Despite the widespread application of viral- and non-viral-mediated gene transfer to liver, heart, skeletal muscle, and the central nervous system, its use in adipose tissue has been limited. This is largely because adipose tissue is distributed throughout the body in distinct depots and adipocytes make up a minority of the cells within the tissue, making transduction difficult. Currently, there is no consensus methodology for efficient gene transfer to adipose tissue and many studies report conflicting information with regard to transduction efficiency and vector biodistribution. In this review, we summarize the challenges associated with gene transfer to adipose tissue and report on innovations that improve efficacy. We describe how vector and route of administration are the two key factors that influence transduction efficiency and outline a “gold standard” approach and experimental workflow for validating gene transfer to adipose tissue. Lastly, we speculate on how CRISPR/Cas9 can be integrated to improve adipose tissue research.