on the other hand, areincapable of replication in mammalian hosts,
present low immuno-genicity and
toxicity,
are easier to manufacture and have highshelf stability (Prather et al., 2003). The usefulness of such plasmidbiopharmaceuticals in the context of gene therapy and DNA vacci-nation is being extensively evaluated in animal and human studies(Kutzler and Weiner, 2008). Plasmid-mediated transient transfec-tions are also gaining popularity when it comes to the productionof recombinant proteins due to the reduced development timelinesrequired when compared with stable transfected cell lines