Structure-delivery relationships of lysine-based gemini surfactants and their lipoplexes

Gemini and Bicephalous Surfactants: A Review on Their Synthesis, Micelle Formation, and Uses

The use of surfactants in polymerization reactions is particularly important, mainly in emulsion polymerizations. Further, micelles from biocompatible surfactants find use in pharmaceutical dosage forms. This paper reviews recent developments in the synthesis of novel gemini and bicephalous surfactants, micelle formation, and their applications in polymer and nanoparticle synthesis, oil recovery, catalysis, corrosion, protein binding, and biomedical area, particularly in drug delivery.

Biological and Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Arginine-Rich Peptide Gemini Surfactants with Lysine and Cystine Spacers

Ultrashort cationic lipopeptides (USCLs) and gemini cationic surfactants are classes of potent antimicrobials. Our recent study has shown that the branching and shortening of the fatty acids chains with the simultaneous addition of a hydrophobic N-terminal amino acid in USCLs result in compounds with enhanced selectivity. Here, this approach was introduced into arginine-rich gemini cationic surfactants. l-cystine diamide and l-lysine amide linkers were used as spacers. Antimicrobial activity against planktonic and biofilm cultures of ESKAPE (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter spp.) strains and Candida sp. as well as hemolytic and cytotoxic activities were examined. Moreover, antimicrobial activity in the presence of human serum and the ability to form micelles were evaluated. Membrane permeabilization study, serum stability assay, and molecular dynamics were performed. Generally, critical aggregation concentration was linearly correlated with hydrophobicity. Gemini surfactants were more active than the parent USCLs, and they turned out to be selective antimicrobial agents with relatively low hemolytic and cytotoxic activities. Geminis with the l-cystine diamide spacer seem to be less cytotoxic than their l-lysine amide counterparts, but they exhibited lower antibiofilm and antimicrobial activities in serum. In some cases, geminis with branched fatty acid chains and N-terminal hydrophobic amino acid resides exhibited enhanced selectivity to pathogens over human cells.

Preparation of a Gemini Surfactant from Mixed Fatty Acid and its Use in Cosmetics

Among the surfactants, dimeric surfactants represent a niche group with multifunctional properties. In this work a modified gemini surfactant was synthesized using symmetrical fatty acids. Due to the spacers used to combine the two symmetrical monomers, the synthesized gemini surfactant is cationic. The structure of the compound was confirmed with 1H-NMR. The most advantageous property of the gemini surfactant is that it has a lower surface tension, i. e. less than 35 mNm–1 at 25°C, compared to monomeric surfactants. The surface tension was determined with a Kyowa tensiometer. The CMC (critical micelle formation concentration) was calculated according to the pyrene method and detected by UV spectroscopy at 25°C. The very low CMC is another market advantage of the gemini surfactant. Hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity of the synthesized compound were checked by the emulsification method. The ability of the synthesized gemini surfactant to wet and foam and the emulsification index at different pH values were tested. Based on the results, the gemini surfactant was used in formulations for hair and skin care. Conditioners and creams were prepared with the synthesized compound and the properties were analyzed at different concentrations of the gemini surfactant in the respective formulation.

Protein Expression Knockdown in Cancer Cells Induced by a Gemini Cationic Lipid Nanovector with Histidine-Based Polar Heads

A histidine-based gemini cationic lipid, which had already demonstrated its efficiency as a plasmid DNA (pDNA) nanocarrier, has been used in this work to transfect a small interfering RNA (siRNA) into cancer cells. In combination with the helper lipid monoolein glycerol (MOG), the cationic lipid was used as an antiGFP-siRNA nanovector in a multidisciplinary study. Initially, a biophysical characterization by zeta potential (ζ) and agarose gel electrophoresis experiments was performed to determine the lipid effective charge and confirm siRNA compaction. The lipoplexes formed were arranged in Lα lamellar lyotropic liquid crystal phases with a cluster-type morphology, as cryo-transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) studies revealed. Additionally, in vitro experiments confirmed the high gene knockdown efficiency of the lipid-based nanovehicle as detected by flow cytometry (FC) and epifluorescence microscopy, even better than that of Lipofectamine2000*, the transfecting reagent commonly used as a positive control. Cytotoxicity assays indicated that the nanovector is non-toxic to cells. Finally, using nano-liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (nanoLC-MS/MS), apolipoprotein A-I and A-II followed by serum albumin were identified as the proteins with higher affinity for the surface of the lipoplexes. This fact could be beyond the remarkable silencing activity of the histidine-based lipid nanocarrier herein presented.

A Non-Viral Plasmid DNA Delivery System Consisting on a Lysine-Derived Cationic Lipid Mixed with a Fusogenic Lipid

The insertion of biocompatible amino acid moieties in non-viral gene nanocarriers is an attractive approach that has been recently gaining interest. In this work, a cationic lipid, consisting of a lysine-derived moiety linked to a C12 chain (LYCl) was combined with a common fusogenic helper lipid (DOPE) and evaluated as a potential vehicle to transfect two plasmid DNAs (encoding green fluorescent protein GFP and luciferase) into COS-7 cells. A multidisciplinary approach has been followed: (i) biophysical characterization based on zeta potential, gel electrophoresis, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and cryo-transmission electronic microscopy (cryo-TEM); (ii) biological studies by fluorescence assisted cell sorting (FACS), luminometry, and cytotoxicity experiments; and (iii) a computational study of the formation of lipid bilayers and their subsequent stabilization with DNA. The results indicate that LYCl/DOPE nanocarriers are capable of compacting the pDNAs and protecting them efficiently against DNase I degradation, by forming Lα lyotropic liquid crystal phases, with an average size of ~200 nm and low polydispersity that facilitate the cellular uptake process. The computational results confirmed that the LYCl/DOPE lipid bilayers are stable and also capable of stabilizing DNA fragments via lipoplex formation, with dimensions consistent with experimental values. The optimum formulations (found at 20% of LYCl content) were able to complete the transfection process efficiently and with high cell viabilities, even improving the outcomes of the positive control Lipo2000*.

Lipoaminoacids Enzyme-Based Production and Application as Gene Delivery Vectors

Biosurfactant compounds have been studied in many applications, including biomedical, food, cosmetic, agriculture, and bioremediation areas, mainly due to their low toxicity, high biodegradability, and multifunctionality. Among biosurfactants, the lipoplexes of lipoaminoacids play a key role in medical and pharmaceutical fields. Lipoaminoacids (LAAs) are amino acid-based surfactants that are obtained from the condensation reaction of natural origin amino acids with fatty acids or fatty acid derivatives. LAA can be produced by biocatalysis as an alternative to chemical synthesis and thus become very attractive from both the biomedical and the environmental perspectives. Gemini LAAs, which are made of two hydrophobic chains and two amino acid head groups per molecule and linked by a spacer at the level of the amino acid residues, are promising candidates as both drug and gene delivery and protein disassembly agents. Gemini LAA usually show lower critical micelle concentration, interact more efficiently with proteins, and are better solubilising agents for hydrophobic drugs when compared to their monomeric counterparts due to their dimeric structure. A clinically relevant human gene therapy vector must overcome or avoid detect and silence foreign or misplaced DNA whilst delivering sustained levels of therapeutic gene product. Many non-viral DNA vectors trigger these defence mechanisms, being subsequently destroyed or rendered silent. The development of safe and persistently expressing DNA vectors is a crucial prerequisite for a successful clinical application, and it one of the main strategic tasks of non-viral gene therapy research.

Tuning optimum transfection of gemini surfactant-phospholipid-DNA nanoparticles by validated theoretical modeling

Gemini nanoparticles (NPs) are a family of non-viral gene delivery systems with potential for applications in non-invasive gene therapy. Translation of these non-viral gene delivery systems requires improvement of transfection efficiency (TE) through fine-tuning of their physicochemical properties such as electric charge and exact ratios of their components. Since high-throughput experimental screening of minute differences in NP compositions is not routinely feasible, we have developed a coarse-grained model to quantitatively study the energetics of the formation of gene delivery complexes with cationic gemini surfactants (G) (m-s-m type) and helper lipids (H) (1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DOPE) and DOPE/1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycerol-3-phosphocholine (DPPC)), in order to use it as a tool to predict effective compositions. The model is based on the polymorphic structural conformational flip of NPs and incorporates the electrostatic, entropic and elastic energies, to predict the formation energy and stability of different polymorphic structures as a function of the electric charge of cationic surfactants and concentration of constituent helper lipids. Our results show that these two factors are intertwined in determining the behavior of gene delivery vectors. Specifically, we show that increasing H/G lowers free energy per DNA base pair and increases the stability of the complex. At pH 7, low H/G and charge ratio (ρ±), where the lamellar structure is favored, the formation free energy per DNA base pair is between 0 and -14kBT. At higher values of H/G (2-3) and ρ±, where HII and cubic structures are formed, the formation free energy drops down to values ≈-50kBT, indicating the stable existence of these polymorphic structures in the NPs. At pH 5, the structural transformation of NPs in the endosomes to the lamellar/HII structure with free energy values of about -40kBT is beneficial for endosomal escape, and correlates with increased transfection efficiency. The theoretical model is supported by transfection data in A7 astrocytes with a panel of 16-3-16 gemini NPs, which validates the mathematical model and supports the hypothesis that the NP polymorphic phase transition increases transfection efficiency.

Lysine-based amino-functionalized lipids for gene transfection: the influence of the chain composition on 2D properties

The influence of the chain composition on the physical-chemical properties will be discussed for five transfection lipids containing the same lysine-based head group. For this purpose, the chain composition will be gradually varied from saturated tetradecyl (C_14:0) and hexadecyl (C_16:0) chains to longer but unsaturated oleyl (C_18:1) chains with double bonds in the cis configuration. In this work, we investigated the lipids as Langmuir monolayers at the air-water-interface in the absence and presence of calf thymus DNA applying different techniques such as infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRRAS) and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD). The replacement of saturated tetradecyl (C_14:0) and hexadecyl (C_16:0) chains by unsaturated oleyl (C_18:1) chains increases the fluidity of the lipid monolayer: TH10 < TT10 < OH10 < OT10 < OO10 resulting in a smaller packing density. TH10 forms the stiffest and OO10 the most fluid monolayer in this structure-property study. OO10 has a higher protonation degree compared to the saturated lipids TT10 and TH10 as well as to the hybrids OT10 and OH10 because of a better accessibility of the amine groups. Depending on the bulk pH, different scenarios of DNA coupling to the lipid monolayers have been proposed.

A Gemini Cationic Lipid with Histidine Residues as a Novel Lipid-Based Gene Nanocarrier: A Biophysical and Biochemical Study

This work reports the synthesis of a novel gemini cationic lipid that incorporates two histidine-type head groups (C₃(C16His)₂). Mixed with a helper lipid 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphatidyl ethanol amine (DOPE), it was used to transfect three different types of plasmid DNA: one encoding the green fluorescence protein (pEGFP-C3), one encoding a luciferase (pCMV-Luc), and a therapeutic anti-tumoral agent encoding interleukin-12 (pCMV-IL12). Complementary biophysical experiments (zeta potential, gel electrophoresis, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and fluorescence anisotropy) and biological studies (FACS, luminometry, and cytotoxicity) of these C₃(C16His)₂/DOPE-pDNA lipoplexes provided vast insight into their outcomes as gene carriers. They were found to efficiently compact and protect pDNA against DNase I degradation by forming nanoaggregates of 120⁻290 nm in size, which were further characterized as very fluidic lamellar structures based in a sandwich-type phase, with alternating layers of mixed lipids and an aqueous monolayer where the pDNA and counterions are located. The optimum formulations of these nanoaggregates were able to transfect the pDNAs into COS-7 and HeLa cells with high cell viability, comparable or superior to that of the standard Lipo2000*. The vast amount of information collected from the in vitro studies points to this histidine-based lipid nanocarrier as a potentially interesting candidate for future in vivo studies investigating specific gene therapies.

Transfection by cationic gemini lipids and surfactants

Diseases that are linked to defective genes or mutations can in principle be cured by gene therapy, in which damaged or absent genes are either repaired or replaced by new DNA in the nucleus of the cell. Related to this, disorders associated with elevated protein expression levels can be treated by RNA interference via the delivery of siRNA to the cytoplasm of cells. Polynucleotides can be brought into cells by viruses, but this is not without risk for the patient. Alternatively, DNA and RNA can be delivered by transfection, i.e. by non-viral vector systems such as cationic surfactants, which are also referred to as cationic lipids. In this review, recent progress on cationic lipids as transfection vectors will be discussed, with special emphasis on geminis, surfactants with 2 head groups and 2 tails connected by a spacer.

Recent progress in gene therapy to deliver nucleic acids with multivalent cationic vectors

Due to the potential use as transfecting agents of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA), multivalent cationic non-viral vectors have received special attention in the last decade. Much effort has been addressed to synthesize more efficient and biocompatible gene vectors able to transport nucleic acids into the cells without provoking an immune response. Among them, the mostly explored to compact and transfect nucleic acids are: (a) gemini and multivalent cationic lipids, mixed with a helper lipid, by forming lipoplexes; and (b) cationic polymers, polycations, and polyrotaxanes, by forming polyplexes. This review is focused on the progress and recent advances experimented in this area, mainly during the present decade, devoting special attention to the lipoplexes and polyplexes, as follows: (a) to its biophysical characterization (mainly electrostatics, structure, size and morphology) using a wide variety of experimental methods; and (b) to its biological activity (transfection efficacy and cytotoxicity) addressed to confirm the optimum formulations and viability of these complexes as very promising gene vectors of nucleic acids in nanomedicine.

New ester based gemini surfactants: the effect of different cationic headgroups on micellization properties and viscosity of aqueous micellar solution

A new series of ester functionalized cationic gemini surfactants having different cationic headgroups (i.e. piperidinium, pyrrolidinium, morpholinium and quaternary ammonium) have been synthesized and characterized using NMR and Mass spectroscopy. These new gemini surfactants were investigated for their micellization and viscosity properties using surface tension, conductivity, fluorescence and rheology thechniques. The physicochemical properties of the aqueous surfactant system were influenced by polarity, size and the nature of cationic headgroups as the surface, thermodynamic and viscosity properties of these gemini surfactants were found to be dependent on the type of cationic headgroup. The current research finding establishes the structure-property relationship of the surfactant molecule specifically taking into account the dominant role displayed by the nature of the cationic headgroup.

Serine-based gemini surfactants with different spacer linkages: from self-assembly to DNA compaction

Cationic gemini surfactants have strong potential as compaction agents of nucleic acids for efficient non-viral gene delivery. In this work, we present the aggregation behavior of three novel cationic serine-based gemini surfactants as well as their ability to compact DNA per se and mixed with a helper lipid, 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DOPE). All the surfactants have a 12-12-12 configuration, i.e. two main 12-carbon alkyl chains linked to the nitrogen atom of the amino acid residue and a 12 methylene spacer, but they differ in the nature of the spacer linkage: for (12Ser)2N12, an amine bond; for (12Ser)2CON12, an amide bond; and for (12Ser)2COO12, an ester bond. Interestingly, while the amine-based gemini aggregates into micelles, the amide and ester ones spontaneously form vesicles, which denotes a strong influence of the type of linkage on the surfactant packing parameter. The size, ζ-potential and stability of the vesicles have been characterized by light microscopy, cryogenic scanning electron microscopy (cryo-SEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). The interaction of the gemini aggregates with DNA at different charge ratios and in the absence and presence of DOPE has been studied by DLS, fluorescence spectroscopy and cryo-SEM. All the compounds are found to efficiently compact DNA (complexation > 90%), but relevant differences are obtained in terms of the size, ζ-potential and stability of the lipoplexes formed. Results are rationalized in terms of headgroup differences and the type of aggregates present prior to DNA condensation.