pH-Triggered Sheddable Shielding System for Polycationic Gene Carriers

Jialiang Xia; Huayu Tian; Jie Chen; Lin Lin; Zhaopei Guo; Bing Han; Hongyan Yang; Zongcai Feng

doi:10.3390/polym8040141

pH-Triggered Sheddable Shielding System for Polycationic Gene Carriers

Polymers (Basel). 2016 Apr 14;8(4):141. doi: 10.3390/polym8040141.

Authors

Jialiang Xia^{1

2}, Huayu Tian³, Jie Chen⁴, Lin Lin⁵, Zhaopei Guo⁶, Bing Han⁷, Hongyan Yang⁸, Zongcai Feng^{9

10}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lingnan Normal University, 29 Cunjin Road, Zhanjiang 524048, China. xiajl105@126.com.
² Development Center for New Materials Engineering & Technology in Universities of Guangdong, Zhanjiang 524048, China. xiajl105@126.com.
³ Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China. thy@ciac.ac.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China. chenjie@ciac.ac.cn.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China. linlin@ciac.ac.cn.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, China. wfgzp@ciac.ac.cn.
⁷ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lingnan Normal University, 29 Cunjin Road, Zhanjiang 524048, China. hbzlz@yeah.net.
⁸ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lingnan Normal University, 29 Cunjin Road, Zhanjiang 524048, China. hongyan7910@126.com.
⁹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lingnan Normal University, 29 Cunjin Road, Zhanjiang 524048, China. fengzongcai921@163.com.
¹⁰ Development Center for New Materials Engineering & Technology in Universities of Guangdong, Zhanjiang 524048, China. fengzongcai921@163.com.

Abstract

For improving the therapeutic efficiency of tumors and decreasing undesirable side effects, ternary complexes were developed by coating pH-sensitive PEG-b-PLL-g-succinylsulfathiazole (hereafter abbreviated as PPSD) with DNA/PEI polyplexes via electrostatic interaction. PPSD can efficiently shield the surface charge of DNA/PEI. The gene transfection efficiency of ternary complexes was lower than that of DNA/PEI at pH 7.4; however, it recovered to the same level as that of DNA/PEI at pH 6.0, attributed to the pH-triggered release of DNA/PEI from ternary complexes. Cell uptake results also exhibited the same trend as transfection at different pH values. The suitable ability for pH-triggered shielding/deshielding estimated that PPSD demonstrates potential as a shielding system for use in in vivo gene delivery.

Keywords: gene delivery; pH-sensitive; shielding system.