Intracellular delivery of therapeutic biomacromolecules, including nucleic acids and proteins, attracts extensive attention in biotherapeutics for various diseases. Herein, a strategy is proposed for the construction of poly(disulfide)s for the efficient delivery of both nucleic acids and proteins into cells. A convenient photo-cross-linking polymerization was adopted between disulfide bonds in two modified lipoic acid monomers (Zn coordinated with dipicolylamine analogue (ZnDPA) and guanidine (GUA)). The disulfide-containing main chain of the resulting poly(disulfide)s was responsive to reducing circumstance, facilitating the release of cargos. By screening the feeding ratio of ZnDPA and GUA, the resulting poly(disulfide)s exhibited better performance in the delivery of nucleic acids including plasmid DNA and siRNA than commercially available transfection reagents. Cellular uptake results revealed that the polymer/cargo complexes entered the cells mainly following a thiol-mediated uptake pathway. Meanwhile, the polymer could also efficiently deliver proteins into cells without an obvious loss of protein activity, showing the versatility of the poly(disulfide)s for the delivery of various biomacromolecules. Moreover, the in vivo therapeutic effect of the materials was verified in the E.G7-OVA tumor-bearing mice. Ovalbumin-based nanovaccine induced a strong cellular immune response, especially cytotoxic T lymphocyte cellular immune response, and inhibited tumor growth. These results revealed the promise of the poly(disulfide)s in the application of both gene therapy and immunotherapy.
Keywords: Gene transfection; Lipoic acid; Protein delivery; Reduction responsiveness; Tumor immunotherapy.