Size-dependent gene delivery of amine-modified silica nanoparticles

作者：Yu Meihua; Niu Yuting; Zhang Jun; Zhang Hongwei; Yang Yannan; Taran Elena; Jambhrunkar Siddharth; Gu Wenyi; Thorn Peter; Yu Chengzhong

来源：Nano Research, 2016, 9(2): 291-305.

DOI：10.1007/s12274-015-0909-5

• silica nanoparticles
• gene delivery
• plasmid DNA
• particle sizes
• cellular uptake

Silica-based nanoparticles are promising carriers for gene delivery applications. To gain insights into the effect of particle size on gene transfection efficiency, amine-modified monodisperse Stober spheres (NH2-SS) with diameters of 125, 230, 330, 440, and 570 nm were synthesized. The in vitro transfection efficiencies of NH2-SS for delivering plasmid DNA encoding green fluorescent protein (GFP) (pcDNA3-EGFP, abbreviated as pcDNA, 6.1 kbp) were studied in HEK293T cells. NH2-SS with a diameter of 330 nm (NH2-SS330) showed the highest GFP transfection level compared to NH2-SS particles with other sizes. The transfection efficiency was found as a compromise between the binding capacity and cellular uptake performance of NH2-SS330 and pcDNA conjugates. NH2-SS330 also demonstrated the highest transfection efficiency for plasmid DNA (pDNA) with a bigger size of 8.9 kbp. To our knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate the significance of particle size for gene transfection efficiency in silica-based gene delivery systems. Our findings are crucial to the rational design of synthetic vectors for gene therapy.

• 出版日期2016-2