What is polybrene?

Polybrene is a cationic polymer commonly used in molecular biology and cell biology research. It is frequently used as a transfection reagent in various cell culture applications. Polybrene helps to improve the efficiency of gene transfer by facilitating the binding of nucleic acids to the cell membrane and promoting their entry into the cells.

Polybrene is often used in conjunction with retroviral or lentiviral vectors to deliver genes or gene editing tools into target cells. It can also be used to enhance the transfection efficiency of plasmid DNA or RNA in certain cell types.

Polybrene is a synthetic compound that is positively charged and interacts with negatively charged molecules such as nucleic acids. It is biodegradable and relatively non-toxic to cells at the concentrations typically used in cell culture experiments. However, it is important to optimize the concentration of polybrene for each specific cell type to minimize cytotoxicity.

Overall, polybrene is a valuable tool for improving gene transfer efficiency in cell culture experiments and is commonly used by researchers in a variety of molecular biology and cell biology applications.