Recently, gene delivery has been designed by using various polymers and bioactive materials, and applied in the diverse fields, such as gene therapy and transfection reagent. Therefore, to develop a potent gene carrier with biocompatibility and biodeg...
Recently, gene delivery has been designed by using various polymers and bioactive materials, and applied in the diverse fields, such as gene therapy and transfection reagent. Therefore, to develop a potent gene carrier with biocompatibility and biodegradability, there was designed water soluble chitosan (WSC) copolymers grafted with arginine, histidine, and lysine in monomer or octamer. The 1H-NMR spectra of copolymers showed a successful synthesis. The pDNA-binding capacities of coplymers were more enhanced than WSC and the size distributions of pDNA/copolymer polyplexes were ranged from 110 to 250 nm, approximately.
The free copolymers and polyplexes with pDNA were non-toxic against rat red blood cells and L929 cells. Interestingly, R8WSC, a octa-arginine peptide-grfted WSC, has the best transfection efficiency, compared to other copolymers and commercial transfection reagent.
Additionally, pDNA/R8WSC was transfected by macropinocytosis, energy, and clathrin clathrinmediated endocytosis.