Abstract
Glycolipids might become a new type of promising non-viral gene delivery systems because of their low cytotoxicity, structural diversity, controllable aqua- and lipo-solubility, appropriate density and distribution of positive charges, high transfer efficiency and potential targeting function. In this study, four kinds of L-arabinose-based cationic glycolipids (Ara-DiC12MA, Ara-DiC14MA, Ara-DiC16MA and Ara-DiC18MA) containing quaternary ammonium as hydrophilic headgroup and two alkane chains as hydrophobic domain were synthesized and characterized. They were observed to have strong affinities for plasmid DNA (pDNA) and siRNA, the pDNA can be completely condensed at N/P ratio less than 2, and the siRNA can be completely retarded at N/P ratio less than 3. The dynamic light scattering (DLS) experiment and atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiment demonstrated that cationic lipids and their lipoplexes possessed suitable particle sizes with near-spherical shape and proper ζ-potentials for cell transfection. The Ara-DiC16MA liposome was found to have good transfection efficacy in HEK293, PC-3 and Mat cells compared with other three kinds of liposomes, and also maintain low cytotoxicity and better uptake capability in vitro. Furthermore, the gene silencing assay showed that Ara-DiC14MA and Ara-DiC16MA liposomes have demonstrated effective delivery and higher gene knockdown activity (>80%) in the above mentioned cells than Lipofectamine 2000. These results indicated Ara-DiC16MA can be developed for efficient and low toxic gene delivery.
Highlights
Under the catalysis of perchloric acid, all the hydroxyls of L-arabinose were masked with acetyl to give compound 1, which was transferred into glycosylation donor 3 by selective 1-O-deacetylation with piperazine in tetrahydrofuran, followed by trichloroacetimidation with trichloroacetonitrile in the presence of potassium carbonate in anhydrous dichloromethane
The results showed that the hydrophobic chain length of cationic lipids and the N/P ratio of lipoplexes are essential factors to affect transfection efficiency
atomic force microscopy (AFM) images and dynamic light scattering experiments demonstrate that all the liposomes could efficiently bind and compact plasmid DNA (pDNA) and siRNA into nanoparticles with proper size and zeta potential
Summary
The transfection efficiency of these liposomes was evaluated by observing enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) expression from pDNA in HEK293, Mat, PC-3, HepG2, MCF-7 and HeLa cells. Since the lipofection efficiency is a cell dependent process [55, 60], the in vitro transfection of these liposomes was evaluated using EGFP-C1 pDNA against six different cell lines including HEK293, Mat, PC-3, Hepg2, MCF-7 and HeLa cells. According to the results of EGFP-C1 pDNA transfection, HEK293, PC-3 and Mat cells were selected to investigate the efficiency of siRNA delivery in vitro by using luciferase knockdown assay.
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