We describe the formulation of synthetic virus models based on ionic compounds bearing the polymerizable 1,2-dithiolane moiety. First, cationic amphiphiles containing the polymeric inducer were prepared and used to efficiently condense a DNA plasmid (pDNA) into a highly monodisperse population of small polymeric cationic DNA nanoparticles (NPs; Dh ∼100 nm). These nonspecific cationic particles were then functionalized with anionic PEGylated conjugates, also based on the 1,2-dithiolane motifs, in order to produce stable and fully dispersible stealth DNA nanoparticles. Our results show that both ionic interactions and polymerization based on the 1,2-dithiolane pattern occur and that they produce highly functionalizable nonviral DNA NPs.
Keywords: DNA; functionalization; lipoic acid derivatives; nanoparticles; polyanionic PEGylated conjugate; polymerizable detergents.
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