DC-chol and TC-chol for transfections?

[Wolfgang Schechinger]

Hi all, 
just came about two chemicals in Sigma's catalogue they claim to be 
suitable for transfections. Has anybody used them and is able to give 
me some hints about their usefulness and toxicity? I'm currently 
evaluating reagents for myotube transfection and so I wonder if I 
should include them in my experiments.

The chemicles are

1) DC-Chol (cholesteryl-3(beta)N-dimethyl aminoethyl)
	
2) TC-Chol (cholesteryl N-trimethyl aminoethyl)

probably better named N-dimethyl aminoethyl cholesterol and 
N-trimethyl aminoethyl cholesterol. 

My chemical belly tells me that they will act as 
cationic lipids with a high transmembrane flipflop potential.

Beside the original papers from the people who invented this stuff, 
I couldn't find any literature describing their use (I searched in 
PubMed).

So I'd appreciate all your output, as usual. 

All the best, 

Wolfgang

Dr. Wolfgang Schechinger, Pathobiochemistry Dept.      
University of Tuebingen, Germany
email: wolfgang.schechinger at med.uni-tuebingen.de 
wwWait: http://www.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/~wgschech/start.htm
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