In vitro physicochemical evaluation of DNA nanoparticles
by Mohsen Hosseinkhani, Hossein Hosseinkhani, Yi-Ru Chen, Karthikeyan Subramani
International Journal of Nanotechnology (IJNT), Vol. 8, No. 8/9, 2011

Abstract: We aim to characterise in vitro physiochemical behaviour of DNA nanoparticles that have been developed by our research group based on the biodegradable natural polymers with metal coordination. A polysaccharide, pullulan, was chosen as the vector of plasmid DNA. Diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) was chemically introduced to the hydroxyl groups of dextran to obtain pullulan-DTPA. When Zn²⁺ solution was added to the mixture of pullulan-DTPA and a plasmid DNA, DNA nanoparticles were formed. The conjugation of pullulan-DTPA with Zn²⁺ coordination decreased the apparent size of plasmid DNA. A negative zeta potential of plasmid DNA became almost 0 mV by the Zn²⁺-coordinated conjugation with the pullulan-DTPA. The stability of DNA nanoparticles formed through metal coordination depended on the percentage of chelate residues introduced, the mixing weight ratio of the plasmid DNA/DTPA residue used for conjugate preparation. We conclude that physicochemical characterisation of non-viral gene vectors is important to enhance gene expression whereas the use of plasmid DNA is not effective.

Online publication date: Fri, 22-Jul-2011

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