Conjugation of histidine derivatives to PEGylated poly(L-lysine-co-L-phenylalanine) copolymer as a non-viral gene carrier

Oligohistidine and targeting peptide functionalized TAT-NLS for enhancing cellular uptake and promoting angiogenesis in vivo

BACKGROUND

Gene therapy has been developed and used in medical treatment for many years, especially for the enhancement of endothelialization and angiogenesis. But slow endosomal escape rate is still one of the major barriers to successful gene delivery. In order to evaluate whether introducing oligohistidine (H_n) sequence into gene carriers can promote endosomal escape and gene transfection or not, we designed and synthesized Arg-Glu-Asp-Val (REDV) peptide functionalized TAT-NLS-H_n (TAT: typical cell-penetrating peptide, NLS: nuclear localization signals, H_n: oligohistidine sequence, n: 4, 8 and 12) peptides with different H_n sequence lengths. pEGFP-ZNF580 (pZNF580) was condensed by these peptides to form gene complexes, which were used to transfect human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs).

RESULTS

MTT assay showed that the gene complexes exhibited low cytotoxicity for HUVECs. The results of cellular uptake and co-localization ratio demonstrated that the gene complexes prepared from TAT-NLS-H_n with long H_n sequence (n = 12) benefited for high internalization efficiency of pZNF580. In addition, the results of western blot analysis and PCR assay of REDV-TAT-NLS-H₁₂/pZNF580 complexes showed significantly enhanced gene expression at protein and mRNA level. Wound healing assay and transwell migration assay also confirmed the improved proliferation and migration ability of the transfected HUVECs by these complexes. Furthermore, the in vitro and in vivo angiogenesis assay illustrated that these complexes could promote the tube formation ability of HUVECs.

CONCLUSION

The above results indicated that the delivery efficiency of pZNF580 and its expression could be enhanced by introducing H_n sequence into gene carriers. The H_n sequence in REDV-TAT-NLS-H_n is beneficial for high gene transfection. These REDV and H_n functionalized TAT-NLS peptides are promising gene carriers in gene therapy.

Serum tolerance and endosomal escape capacity of histidine-modified pDNA-loaded complexes based on polyamidoamine dendrimer derivatives

Aiming to aid polyamidoamine (PAMAM, generation 4, PG4) to overcome gene delivery barriers like extrinsic serum inhibition, intrinsic cytotoxicity and lysosome digestion, histidine motifs modified PAMAM was prepared. The histidine activated PAMAM generation 4 (HPG4) was synthesized via aminolysis reaction and characterized by 1H NMR spectrum and MALDI-TOF-MS. Cytotoxicity profiles of HPG4 on MD-MB-231 cells were significantly improved in the form of polymer and polymer/DNA complexes comparing to PG4. The luciferase protein expression level of HPG4 was 20-, 2.7- and 1.2- fold higher than that of PG4, SuperFect and PEI 25k. Most importantly, flow cytometry and gene transfection studies showed that histidine motifs of HPG4 not only acted as enhancer for faster cellular uptake, but also played an important role on enhancing serum tolerance of the system on cellular uptake and transfection. Among the serum concentrations of 10%-50%, HPG4 showed 10-100 folds higher transfection efficiency than PG4. Intracellular fate observation conducted by confocal microscope provided visual and quantitative evidence that endsomal escape efficiency of HPG4 system was higher than that of PG4. Lastly, the endosomal escape mechanism of HPG4 system was analyzed by endosome destabilization and proton pump inhibition treatment. Collectively, compared to PG4/pDNA, HPG4/pDNA showed improvement on cellular uptake, serum tolerance, cytotoxicity profile, and endosomal escape.

Facile synthesis of multiamino vinyl poly(amino acid)s for promising bioapplications

We presented a general and facile strategy to prepare biocompatible multiamino polymers. Series of new monomers were synthesized by esterification of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and Boc-amino acids, such as Boc-l-phenylalanine, Boc-glycine, Boc-l-alanine, Boc-l-valine, and Boc-l-lysine. Subsequent vinyl polymerization of monomers gave rise to vinyl poly(amino acid)s with a side primary amino group at each unit if deprotected. Both atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and conventional free radical polymerization (FRP) were employed to prepare the multiamino polymers. A well controlled effect upon molecular weight with the standard first-order kinetics was achieved in cases of ATRP, and high molecular weight polymers were obtained via FRP. MTT assay showed that cell survival rates for the multiamino polymers were almost maintained above 90% and that their cytotoxicities were much lower than that of linear PEI (PEI 25000). Zeta potential measurements demonstrated that the vinyl poly(amino acid)s are electropositive, and AFM measurements showed that the vinyl poly(amino acid)s could tightly condense DNA into granular structures at a suitable concentration. The combination of facile availability, controlled productivity, low cytotoxicity and strong binding ability with DNA promises the great potential of the novel multiamino polymers in bioapplications.