Fig. 2

Schematic representation of most commons’ methods for intracellular cargo delivery. Membrane disruption-based methods, such as permeabilization (in red) and penetration (in blue) are physical techniques that induce the formation of transient pores into the plasmatic membrane for the cargo cell internalization. Other methods use biochemical approaches for the membrane permeabilization and the cargo translocation (e.g., detergents, pore-forming proteins). In alternative, cargoes gain the access to the intracellular compartment by carrier-mediated delivery systems (biochemical assemblies or viral vectors). The carrier can be internalized via endocytosis (in green) or by membrane fusion (in orange) depending on its chemical or biological nature