© 2009 Oxford University Press
This article appears in the following Nucleic Acid Symposium Series issue: The 6th International Symposium on Nucleic Acids Chemistry (36th Symposium on Nucleic Acids Chemistry) [View the issue table of contents]
Polyethylenimine derived nanoparticles for efficient gene delivery
1Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Mall Road, Delhi University Campus, Delhi 110007, India and 2Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, M.G. Road, Lucknow 226001, India
*Corresponding author. E-mail: kcgupta{at}igib.res.in
Abstract
Introduction of therapeutic genes into the cells of an organism in a safe and efficient way has become a challenging task in non-viral mediated gene therapy. Here, branched polyethylenimine (bPEI, 25 kDa) was converted into nanoparticles through electrostatic interactions with anionic polysaccharides (e.g. alginic acid, Al and hyaluronic acid, HA). A small library of PEI-Al and PEI-HA nanoparticles was synthesized by varying the amounts of anionic polysaccharides and evaluated in terms of their size, surface charge, cytotoxicity, transfection efficiency, etc. Both the series of nanoparticles exhibited higher cell viability and transfection efficiency as compared to native PEI and the standard transfection reagents. In vivo targeting efficacy of PEI-HA(4.6%) nanoparticles was examined in tumor induced mice.