Aerosol-based fabrication of modified chitosans and their application for gene transfection

摘要

Modified chitosans consisted of a chitosan backbone and an additional component [with cholesterol, poly(L-lysine) (PLL), polyethyleneimine (PEI), or poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)]. Agarose gel retardation assays confirmed that modified chitosans could associated with plasmid DNA. Even though the cell viability of cholesterol-chitosan (Ch-Cs) showed a slight higher cytotoxicity (～90% in cell viability) than that for unmodified chitosan (Cs, ～95%), transfection [＞7.5 × 10~5 in relative light units (RLU) mg~(-1)] was more effective than it was for Cs (～7.6 × 10~4 RLU mg~(-1) ). The addition of PEI onto Cs (i.e. Cs/PEI) enhanced the transfection efficiency (～1.3 × 10~6 RLU mg~(-1)) more than did the addition of PLL (i.e. Cs/PLL, ～9.3 × 10~5 RLU mg~(-1) ). However it resulted in higher cytotoxicity (～86% in cell viability for Cs/PEI vs ～94% for Cs/PLL). The cell viability (～92%) and transfection efficiency (～1.9 × 10~6 RLU mg~(-1)) were complemented by further adding PEG on Cs/PEI (i.e. Cs/PEI-PEG).