Design and Synthesis of Dendritic Molecular Transporter that Achieves Efficient in Vivo Delivery of Morpholino Antisense Oligo

Abstract

Safe and efficient in vivo delivery of Morpholino antisense oligos was probably the last and most difficult challenge for the broad application of antisense in animal research and therapeutics. Several arginine-rich peptides effective for in vivo delivery of Morpholino antisense oligos require rather complex and expensive procedures for synthesis and conjugation. This work describes the design and synthesis of a dendritic transporter in a most concise manner where the selection of the core scaffold, functional group multiplication, orthogonal protecting group manipulation, solid phase conjugation, and off-resin perguanidinylation of the transporter structure are all orchestrated for efficient assembly. We utilized triazine as a core to provide a site for on-column conjugation to the Morpholino oligo and to anchor functional side arms which, after extension, multiplication, and deprotection, are subsequently converted from primary amines to the eight guanidinium headgroups that serve for transport across cell membranes. Intravenous administration of the delivery-enabled Morpholino into a splice-reporter strain of transgenic living mice results in de novo expression of splice-corrected green fluorescent protein in a broad range of tissues and organs in those treated mice. This rigorously demonstrates that this new dendritic transporter achieves effective delivery of a Morpholino oligo into the cytosol/nuclear compartment of cells systemically in vivo. The practical conjugation process may overcome any availability limitation for routine use by the scientific community, and the efficient delivery ability of this transporter may advance the application of Morpholino antisense technology in animals.