Lipopeptide nanoparticles for potent and selective siRNA delivery in rodents and nonhuman primates.

siRNA therapeutics have promise for the treatment of a wide range of genetic disorders. Motivated by lipoproteins, we report lipopeptide nanoparticles as potent and selective siRNA carriers with a wide therapeutic index. Lead material cKK-E12 showed potent silencing effects in mice (ED50 ∼ 0.002 mg/kg), rats (ED50 < 0.01 mg/kg), and nonhuman primates (over 95% silencing at 0.3 mg/kg). Apolipoprotein E plays a significant role in the potency of cKK-E12 both in vitro and in vivo. cKK-E12 was highly selective toward liver parenchymal cell in vivo, with orders of magnitude lower doses needed to silence in hepatocytes compared with endothelial cells and immune cells in different organs. Toxicity studies showed that cKK-E12 was well tolerated in rats at a dose of 1 mg/kg (over 100-fold higher than the ED50). To our knowledge, this is the most efficacious and selective nonviral siRNA delivery system for gene silencing in hepatocytes reported to date.

Degradable lipid nanoparticles with predictable in vivo siRNA delivery activity.

One of the most significant challenges in the development of clinically viable delivery systems for RNA interference therapeutics is to understand how molecular structures influence delivery efficacy. Here, we have synthesized 1,400 degradable lipidoids and evaluate their transfection ability and structure-function activity. We show that lipidoid nanoparticles mediate potent gene knockdown in hepatocytes and immune cell populations on IV administration to mice (siRNA EC50 values as low as 0.01 mg kg(-1)). We identify four necessary and sufficient structural and pKa criteria that robustly predict the ability of nanoparticles to mediate greater than 95% protein silencing in vivo. Because these efficacy criteria can be dictated through chemical design, this discovery could eliminate our dependence on time-consuming and expensive cell culture assays and animal testing. Herein, we identify promising degradable lipidoids and describe new design criteria that reliably predict in vivo siRNA delivery efficacy without any prior biological testing.