The influence of RGD addition on the gene transfer characteristics of disulfide-containing polyethyleneimine/DNA complexes.
Arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) ligand is often chemically attached to polycation vector to improve the transfection efficiency. However, the chemical reaction may reduce or even inactivate the biological activities of peptides. In order to retain the targeting ability and biological activities, the RGD peptide was noncovalently introduced into polycations as gene delivery systems. In this paper, the tripeptide sequence RGD was added to disulfide-containing polyethyleneimine (SS-PEI)/DNA binary complexes to evaluate the influence of RGD addition for the particle size, zeta potential, morphology, and transfection efficiency. GelRed was used as a molecular probe to show the effect of RGD addition on the cellular uptake of complexes. In vitro transfection experiments showed that SS-PEI exhibited comparable transfection efficiency, but lower cytotoxicity in comparison with 25kDa PEI. The transfection efficiency of complexes with RGD in HeLa cells was reduced statistically significantly with the increasing content of RGD peptide, but that in 293T cells was not altered significantly with the increasing content of RGD peptide. The reduced transfection efficiency of SS-PEI/DNA complexes with RGD in HeLa cells was attributed to the targeted binding interactions between the surplus RGD and the alpha(nu)beta(3) and alpha(nu)beta(5) integrins in HeLa cells, which would prevent the binding between RGD in complexes and integrin receptor on the surface of cells as well as nonspecific endocytosis of SS-PEI/DNA complexes mediated by proteoglycan in HeLa cells.
Sun
Yun-Xia
YX
Key Laboratory of Biomedical Polymers, Ministry of Education and Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, PR China.
Zeng
Xuan
X
Meng
Qing-Fei
QF
Zhang
Xian-Zheng
XZ
Cheng
Si-Xue
SX
Zhuo
Ren-Xi
RX
D002021:Buffers; D002460:Cell Line; D002470:Cell Survival; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D004220:Disulfides / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D015394:Molecular Structure; D009842:Oligopeptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D010316:Particle Size; D011094:Polyethyleneimine / Q000737:chemistry*; D019076:Transgenes / Q000235:genetics*
D002021:Buffers; D004220:Disulfides; D009842:Oligopeptides; C047981:arginyl-glycyl-aspartic acid; D011094:Polyethyleneimine; D004247:DNA