A biodegradable poly(amido amine) based on the antimicrobial polymer polyhexamethylene biguanide for efficient and safe gene delivery

Haonan Xing, Lin Cheng, Mei Lu, Hui Liu, Lang Lang, Tianzhi Yang, Xiaoyun Zhao, Hui Xu, Li Yang*, Pingtian Ding

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Inspired by the excellent membrane affinity of antimicrobial polymers, we synthesized a novel biodegradable poly(amino amine) polymer with pendent side chains that mimic the widely used biocide polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB) for gene delivery. Michael addition polymerization was utilized to form the polymer scaffold between N,N′-cystaminebisacrylamide (CBA) and N-Boc-1,6-diaminohexane (Boc-DAH) followed by N-Boc deprotection. Then the exposed primary amino groups were partly (about 75%) transformed into biguanide by an addition reaction with dicyandiamide to obtain the final product CBA-DAH-biguanide (CBA-DAH-BG). The polymer CBA-DAH-BG was able to condense plasmid DNA (pDNA) into nano-sized (<200 nm), positively-charged (>35 mV) polyplexes that were well resistant to heparin and DNase I. Rapid DNA release was observed in the presence of dithiothreitol (DTT), indicating that CBA-DAH-BG was equipped with biodegradability by the cleavage of disulfide bonds, which was helpful for unpacking DNA and decreasing cytotoxicity. CBA-DAH-BG/pDNA polyplexes were characterized by efficient cellular uptake efficacy, extremely low cytotoxicity, and high transfection efficiency in two cell lines (i.e., NIH/3T3 and U87 MG), compared to 25 kDa polyethyleneimine (PEI) and the intermediate product CBA-DAH that were both devoid of biguanide groups. Of note, clathrin-mediated endocytosis and lipid rafts played an important role in the internalization of the polyplexes. Taken together, this strategy described herein may represent an innovative avenue for the design of more advanced nonviral gene vectors with high transfection efficiency and biocompatibility.

Original languageEnglish
Article number110355
JournalColloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces
Volume182
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2019
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Biodegradability
  • Gene delivery
  • Nonviral gene vector
  • Poly(amido amine)
  • Polyhexamethylene biguanide

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