Intracellular transport of DNA carriers is a fundamental step of gene delivery. By combining both theoretical and numerical approaches we study here single and several viruses and DNA particles trafficking in the cell cytoplasm to a small nuclear pore. We present a physical model to account for certain aspects of cellular organization, starting with the observation that a viral trajectory consists of epochs of pure diffusion and epochs of active transport along microtubules. We define a general degradation rate to describe the limitations of the delivery of plasmid or viral particles to a nuclear pore imposed by various types of direct and indirect hydrolysis activity inside the cytoplasm. By replacing the switching dynamics by a single steady state stochastic description, we obtain estimates for the probability and the mean time for the first one of many particles to go from the cell membrane to a small nuclear pore. Computational simulations confirm that our model can be used to analyze and interpret viral trajectories and estimate quantitatively the success of nuclear delivery.

• Received 22 May 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.79.011921