Introduction: In recent years, there has been a great deal of interest in the development of vectors which are being developed based on the capacity of polymers to mediate appropriate interactions with the cellular environment, or to interface with specific cellular processes. Several such vectors have been synthesized, resulting in biomacromolecules with low cytotoxicity and higher gene delivery ability.
Areas covered: This review briefly describes the recent success of poly(amido amine)s (PAAs) as non-viral vectors, and highlights their promising future in the development of nucleic acid-based therapy. It also provides an overview on the synthesis, characterization and application of PAAs as gene carriers, which will be useful for various biological motifs. This review helps the readers to better understand the emergence of non-viral vectors for gene therapy, especially PAAs, their properties, their advantages and disadvantages and the gene therapy based on them.
Expert opinion: The future of gene-based therapy needs to identify approaches to develop new carriers, depending on the properties of the biological membranes they face, and their physicochemical properties, in order to successfully deliver the genes to the target sites. With the emergence of a variety of non-viral vectors, such as biodegradable polymers, it may not take long before non-viral vectors are observed that are not just safe and tissue-specific, but even more efficient than viral vectors.