Transfection - Terminology

Terminology

The meaning of the term has evolved. The original meaning of transfection was "infection by transformation," i.e., introduction of DNA (or RNA) from a prokaryote-infecting virus or bacteriophage into cells, resulting in an infection. Because the term transformation had another sense in animal cell biology (a genetic change allowing long-term propagation in culture, or acquisition of properties typical of cancer cells), the term transfection acquired, for animal cells, its present meaning of a change in cell properties caused by introduction of DNA.