Comparative Investigation of Polymeric and Nanoparticle Vehicles for Transgene Delivery

Abstract

Effective design of nanoparticle systems can have a significant impact on therapeutic delivery. Physicochemical factors including size, shape and surface chemistry of nanoparticles can play a significant role in determining the efficacy of drug and gene delivery to cells. Polymeric as well as inorganic nanoparticle systems have been investigated as vehicles for nonviral gene delivery of transgenes. However, a head-to-head comparison of these different systems is largely lacking. In this study, we compare three related delivery systems, polymer, polymer-templated gold nanospheres and polymer-coated gold nanorods, for their respective in vitro transgene expression efficacies. Significant differences were seen in the hydrodynamic diameter and zeta potential for each of these different vehicles. Nevertheless, transgene (luciferase) expression efficacies and cytotoxicities were found to be similar for these three vehicles under different conditions. Our results indicate that polymeric systems can be used for synthesis or modification of nanoparticle systems with negligible variations in their transgene expression efficacies. This can have significant implications for generating polymer-nanoparticle theranostic systems that maintain therapeutic (e.g., nucleic acid) delivery efficacies, while also possessing additional functionalities, including