摘要
The safe and effective intracellular delivery of nucleic acids remains the most challenging obstacle to the broad application of gene therapy in clinic. Endosomal escape of nucleic acids is also a major barrier for efficient gene delivery. Ketal linkage is known to readily cleave at the acidic pH of endosomal compartments. Here, we report ketal containing poly(beta-amino ester) (KPAE) as an acid-cleavable non-viral siRNA delivery system. KPAE efficiently condensed siRNA into nanocomplexes with a diameter of similar to 150 nm, which are stable under neutral conditions but rapidly dissociate to release siRNA at acidic pH. KPAE had a buffering capacity due to the presence of secondary amines in its backbone, confirmed by acid-base titration. Moreover, the studies of confocal fluorescence imaging using calcein and Lyso-Tracker Red revealed that KPAE disrupted endosomes by colloid osmotic mechanism and %26quot;proton sponge%26quot; effects. Cell culture studies demonstrated that KPAE can deliver tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-alpha) siRNA to lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated macrophages and significantly inhibit the expression of TNF-alpha. The results demonstrate that acid-cleavable KPAE has great potential as gene delivery systems based on its excellent biocompatibility, pH sensitivity and high gene delivery efficiency.
- 出版日期2013-9-10