Molecular pharmaceuticsMay 13, 2010

Polymer nanoparticles carrying linked phospholipase A2 for gene delivery without viruses

mRNA Technology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Apr 2, 2026

Abstract

At N/P ratios of 15 and 20, transfection efficiency increased by 13- and 8-fold, respectively, compared to PEI.

Conjugation of phospholipase A(2) to polyethylenimine aims to enhance gene delivery efficiency.
The conjugate retains the activity of phospholipase A(2) and effectively condenses plasmid DNA.
Nanoparticles formed from the conjugate are similar in size to those made with native polyethylenimine.
Toxicity studies indicate that the uncomplexed conjugate has toxicity levels comparable to polyethylenimine, while complexing with DNA significantly reduces its toxicity.
The findings suggest that this method may improve the efficiency of nonviral gene delivery systems.

Simplified

Polyethylenimine (PEI) was conjugated to phospholipase A(2) (PLA(2)) in an effort to improve transfection efficiency. PLA(2) was conjugated to PEI using EDC as a coupling reagent. The activity of enzyme in the conjugate was measured. DNA condensation ability of the conjugate to polymer was determined. The resultant nanoparticles were characterized by dynamic and electrophoretic light scattering. Two reporter genes were used to evaluate transfection efficiency in human embryonic kidney (HEK293) and human hepatoma (HepG2) cell lines. Conjugate was shown to retain PLA(2) activity and its ability to condense plasmid DNA, resulting in nanoparticles of a similar size to native PEI. The results demonstrated at N/P ratios of 15 and 20 showed 13- and 8-fold increase in transfection efficiency, respectively, compared to the maximum transfection efficiency of PEI (N/P ratio of 5) in the whole range of N/P ratios tested, from 5 to 60 in HepG2 cells. Toxicity studies in HepG2 cells showed uncomplexed conjugate had similar toxicity as PEI, and when complexed with DNA the conjugate had a significantly reduced toxicity. The results clearly indicate the potential for this approach to improve efficiencies of nonviral gene delivery vectors.

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View Full Text ↗

Polymer nanoparticles carrying linked phospholipase A2 for gene delivery without viruses

Abstract

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the mrna technology brief