A polyethylenimine-mimetic biodegradable polycation gene vector and the effect of amine composition in transfection efficiency.

J Shen, D J Zhao, W Li, Q L Hu, Q W Wang, F J Xu, G P Tang

Index: Biomaterials 34(18) , 4520-31, (2013)

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Abstract

The low toxicity and efficient gene delivery of polymeric vectors remain the major barrier to the clinical application of non-viral gene therapy. Here, we present a poly-D, L-succinimide (PSI)-based biodegradable cationic polymer which mimicked the golden standard, branched polyethylenimine (PEI, ~25 kDa). To investigate the influence of 1°, 2°, 3° amine group ratio in the polymer, a series of PSI-based vectors (PSI-NN'x-NNy) grafted with different amine side chains of N,N-dimethyldipropylenetriamine (NN') and bis(3-aminopropyl)amine (NN) were first characterized and contrasted by biophysical measurements. The in vitro and in vivo biological assay demonstrated that PSI-NN'0.85-NN1 exhibited better transfection ability and biocompatibility than PEI. The present results suggest that such PEI-mimic biodegradable PSI-NN'0.85-NN1 possesses a good potential application for clinical gene delivery.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.