Protein delivery into live cells by incubation with an endosomolytic agent

We report on how a dimer of the cell-penetrating peptide TAT, dfTAT, penetrates live cells by escaping from endosomes with a particularly high efficiency. By mediating endosomal leakage, dfTAT also delivers proteins into cultured cells after a simple co-incubation procedure. Cytosolic delivery is achieved in most cells in a culture and only a relatively small amount of material remains trapped inside endosomes. Delivery does not require binding interactions between dfTAT and a protein, multiple molecules can be delivered at once, and delivery can be repeated. Remarkably, dfTAT-mediated delivery does not noticeably impact cell viability, proliferation, or gene expression. This new delivery strategy should be extremely useful for cell-based assays, cellular imaging applications, and the ex vivo manipulation of cells.