Efficient Gene Silencing by Self-Assembled Complexes of siRNA and Symmetrical Fatty Acid Amides of Spermine

Pharmaceutics

Abdelkader A. Metwally¹  Charareh Pourzand¹ 

[1] id="af1-pharmaceutics-03-00125">Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY,

关键词: fatty acids;    gene silencing;    GFP;    lipoplexes;    self-assembly;    siRNA;    spermine;   

DOI  :  10.3390/pharmaceutics3020125

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Gene silencing by siRNA (synthetic dsRNA of 21-25 nucleotides) is a well established biological tool in gene expression studies and has a promising therapeutic potential for difficult-to-treat diseases. Five fatty acids of various chain length and oxidation state (C12:0, C18:0, C18:1, C18:2, C22:1) were conjugated to the naturally occurring polyamine, spermine, and evaluated for siRNA delivery and gene knock-down. siRNA delivery could not be related directly to gene silencing efficiency as N⁴,N⁹-dierucoyl spermine resulted in higher siRNA delivery compared to N⁴,N⁹-dioleoyl spermine. GFP silencing in HeLa cells showed that the unsaturated fatty acid amides are more efficient than saturated fatty acid amides, with N⁴,N⁹-dioleoyl spermine resulting in the most efficient gene silencing in the presence of serum. The alamarBlue cell viability assay showed that fatty acid amides of spermine have good viability (75%–85% compared to control) except N⁴,N⁹-dilauroyl spermine which resulted in low cell viability. These results prove that unsaturated fatty acid amides of spermine are efficient, non-toxic, non-viral vectors for siRNA mediated gene silencing.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2011 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.