Saponin and Fluorine-Modified Polycation As a Versatile Gene Delivery System Publisher Pubmed



Hasanzadeh A¹ ; Vahabi AH¹ ; Hooshmand SE¹ ; Hosseini ES¹ ; Azar BKY² ; Kiani J^{2, 3} ; Saeedi S¹ ; Shahbazi A⁴ ; Rudra A^{5, 6, 7} ; Hamblin MR⁸ ; Karimi M^{1, 3, 9, 10}
Source: Nanotechnology Published:2022

Abstract

Despite the development of many novel carriers for the delivery of various types of genetic material, the lack of a delivery system with high efficiency and low cytotoxicity is a major bottleneck. Herein, low molecular weight polyethylenimine (PEI1.8k) was functionalized with saponin residues using phenylboronic acid (PBA) as an ATP-responsive cross-linker, and a fluorinated side chain to construct PEI-PBA-SAP-F polycation as a highly efficient delivery vector. This vehicle could transfect small plasmid DNA (∼3 kb) with outstanding efficiency into various cells, including HEK 293T, NIH3T3, A549, PC12, MCF7 and HT-29, as well as robust transfection of a large plasmid (∼9 kb) into HEK 293T cells. The carrier indicated good transfection efficacy even at high concentration of serum and low doses of plasmid. The use of green fluorescent protein (GFP) knock-out analysis demonstrated transfection of different types of CRISPR/Cas9 complexes (Cas9/sgRNA ribonucleoproteins RNP, plasmid encoding Cas9 plus sgRNA targeting GFP, Cas9 expression plasmid plus in vitro-prepared sgRNA). In summary, we report an effective PEI-PBA-SAP-F gene carrier with the appropriate lipophilic/cationic balance for biomedical applications. © 2022 IOP Publishing Ltd.