Polyaspartamide-based oligo-ethylenimine brushes with high buffer capacity and low cytotoxicity for highly efficient gene delivery.

ABSTRACT

Polyaspartamide-based oligo-ethylenimine brushes (PASP-EDA, PASP-TEPA, PASP-PEHA, and PASP-PEI 423) were synthesized from polysuccinimide (PSI) via a ring-opening reaction with N-Boc protected ethylenediamine, tetraethylenepentamine, pentaethylenehexamine, and linear polyethylenimine (Mn 423), respectively. PASP-TEPA, PASP-PEHA, and PASP-PEI 423 possess high buffer capacity between pH 5 and pH 7, which is comparable to that of branched PEI 25000. The cytotoxicity assay indicated that they all are less toxic than PEI 25000. At an N/P ratio of above 2, all of the four synthetic polycation brushes can condense plasmid DNA to form small sized (160-400 nm) polyelectrolyte complexes with positive surface charge. The transfection of HEK 293 cells with oligo-ethylenimine brush/pRE Luc polyplexes indicated that the transfection efficiencies increased with increasing the length of oligo-ethylenimine side chains. The luciferase expression with PASP-PEHA and PASP-PEI 423 were as high as or even a little higher than that of PEI 25000. The results demonstrate that polyaspartamide-based oligo-ethylenimine brushes are a very promising class of novel polycations for highly efficient and less toxic gene delivery.