Size-dependent gene delivery of amine-modified silica nanoparticles

• Published in: Nano research 2016-02, Vol.9 (2), p.291-305
• Main Authors: Yu, Meihua, Niu, Yuting, Zhang, Jun, Zhang, Hongwei, Yang, Yannan, Taran, Elena, Jambhrunkar, Siddharth, Gu, Wenyi, Thorn, Peter, Yu, Chengzhong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Cellular; Chemistry and Materials Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Delivery systems; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Efficiency; Expression vectors; Fluorescence; Gene therapy; Gene transfer; Genes; Green fluorescent protein; Materials Science; Nanoparticles; Nanostructure; Nanotechnology; Particle size; pcDNA3; Plasmid DNA; Plasmids; Research Article; Silica; Silicon dioxide; Transfection; 二氧化硅; 基因传递; 大尺寸; 改性; 硅纳米颗粒; 质粒DNA; 转染效率
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-015-0909-5

Silica-based nanoparticles are promising carriers for gene delivery applications. To gain insights into the effect of particle size on gene transfection efficiency, amine-modified monodisperse St6ber spheres （NH2-SS） with diameters of 125, 230, 330, 440, and 570 nm were synthesized. The in vitro transfection efficiencies of NH2-SS for delivering plasmid DNA encoding green fluorescent protein （GFP） （pcDNA3-EGFP, abbreviated as pcDNA, 6.1 kbp） were studied in HEK293T cells. NH2-SS with a diameter of 330 nm （NH2-SS330） showed the highest GFP transfection level compared to NH2-SS particles with other sizes. The transfection efficiency was found as a compromise between the binding capacity and cellular uptake performance of NH2-SS330 and pcDNA conjugates. NH2-SS330 also demonstrated the highest transfection efficiency for plasmid DNA （pDNA） with a bigger size of 8.9 kbp. To our knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate the significance of particle size for gene transfection efficiency in silica-based gene delivery systems. Our findings are crucial to the rational design of synthetic vectors for gene therapy.