EFFECTS OF CORE AND SHELL MODIFICATION TO TETHERED NANOASSEMBLIES ON SIRNA THERAPY

siRNA therapy is an emerging technique that reduces protein expression in cells by degrading their mRNAs via the RNA interference pathway (RNAi). Diseases such as cancer often proliferate due to increased protein expression and siRNA therapy offers a new method of treatment for those diseases. Although siRNA therapy has shown success in vitro, it often fails in vivo due to instability in the blood stream. To overcome this limitation, delivery vehicles are necessary for successful transfection of siRNA into target cells and cationic polymers have been widely studied for this purpose. However, complexes between siRNA and delivery vehicles made from cationic polymers exhibit stability issues in the blood stream which results in toxicity and low transfection. This work hypothesizes that improvement of vehicle/siRNA complex stability will improve siRNA transfection efficiency. To test this, the contributions and outcomes of poly(ethylene glycol) [PEG] shell and hydrophobic core modification to a polyethylenimine (PEI) based tethered nanoassemblies (TNAs) were examined. Initially, hydrophobic modification of palmitate (PAL) to the core of the TNA yielded improved transfection efficiency due to an enhanced endosomal escape capability. However, this modification also reduced the TNA/siRNA complex stability. This indicated that the core hydrophobicity must be balanced in order increase stability while increasing transfection efficiency. Additionally, TNAs made from PEG and PEI did not cause transfection in our initial study. The PEG shell density was found to be too great and thereby reduced transfection efficiency. Reducing the PEG density by lowering PEG molecular weight, reducing attachment percentage, and removing small PEI impurities from the synthesis stock increased overall transfection efficiency and unimolecularity of the TNA complexes. This indicated that the shell composition of the TNA must be tuned in order to improve particle design. Further study of the hydrophobically modification to TNAs yielded unintended effects on the transfection efficiency evaluation assay. These particles exhibited an siRNA independent reduction in the reporter protein used to observe transfection, or a false positive effect, that was not previously observed. It was found that this false positive was influence mainly by the hydrophobic group rather than the cationic polymer backbone. Cellular stress was observed in cells dosed with the hydrophobically modified TNAs which lead to over ubiquitination and rapid degradation of the luciferase protein. This demonstrated that core components of TNAs could cause cellular stress and influence interaction outside of the TNA. Overall, this work demonstrates that hydrophobic core and PEG shell modification require balancing and consideration to improve properties of future cationic polymer based siRNA delivery vehicle design

Polymer Nanoassemblies with Hydrophobic Pendant Groups in the Core Induce False Positive siRNA Transfection in Luciferase Reporter Assays

Poly(ethylene glycol)-conjugated polyethylenimine (PEG-PEI) is a widely studied cationic polymer used to develop non-viral vectors for siRNA therapy of genetic disorders including cancer. Cell lines stably expressing luciferase reporter protein typically evaluate the transfection efficacy of siRNA/PEG-PEI complexes, however recent findings revealed that PEG-PEI can reduce luciferase expression independent of siRNA. This study elucidates a cause of the false positive effect in luciferase assays by using polymer nanoassemblies (PNAs) made from PEG, PEI, poly-(L-lysine) (PLL), palmitate (PAL), and deoxycholate (DOC): PEG-PEI (2P), PEG-PEI-PAL (3P), PEG-PLL (2P′), PEG-PLL-PAL (3P′), and PEG-PEI-DOC (2PD). In vitro transfection and western blot assays of luciferase using a colorectal cancer cell line expressing luciferase (HT29/LUC) concluded that 2P and 2P′ caused no luciferase expression reduction while hydrophobically modified PNAs induced a 35-50% reduction (3P′ \u3c 2PD \u3c 3P). Although cell viability remained stagnant, 3P triggered cellular stress responses including increased membrane porosity and decreased ATP and cellular protein concentrations. Raman spectroscopy suggested that hydrophobic groups influence PNA conformation changes, which may have caused over-ubiquitination and degradation of luciferase in the cells. These results indicate that hydrophobically modified PEG-PEI induces cellular distress causing over-ubiquitination of the luciferase protein, producing false positive siRNA transfection in the luciferase assay

Increased poly(ethylene glycol) density decreases transfection efficacy of siRNA/poly(ethylene imine) complexes

Small interfering RNA (siRNA) inhibits specific gene expression in cells to treat genetic diseases including cancer, but siRNA-based cancer therapy is often hindered by inefficient siRNA delivery to tumor. Poly(ethylene glycol)-conjugated poly(ethylene imine) (PEG-PEI) is widely studied as a promising siRNA carrier. PEG-PEI can form ion complexes with siRNA and enhance siRNA gene silencing (transfection) due to its high buffering capacity. However, the transfection efficacy of PEG-PEI formulations changes due to variable polymer compositions. This study investigates the effects of PEG-related factors [molecular weight (PEG MW), substitution rate (PEG%), and short PEI contaminants] on siRNA transfection efficiency of PEG-PEI in a model human colon cancer cell line (HT29). High PEG density increased PEG-PEI mass to form complexes yet decreased in vitro transfection efficiency. Low PEG MW (550 Da, 2 kDa, and 5 kDa) induced complexation between PEG-PEI and siRNA at a reduced charge ratio (N/P ratio). Dialysis removed short PEI contaminants, and the dialyzed PEI with PEG (PEG-PEI-d) formed siRNA complexes with minimal particle size distribution than PEG-PEI. siRNA/PEG-PEI-d complexes showed transfection efficiency similar to siRNA/PEG-PEI complexes at a lower N/P ratio. These results conclude that PEG MW, density, and small PEI contaminants are three major factors influencing transfection of siRNA/PEI complexes

Effects of the Lipophilic Core of Polymer Nanoassemblies on Intracellular Delivery and Transfection of siRNA

Despite effective gene silencing in vitro, in vivo delivery and transfection of siRNA remain challenging due to the lack of carriers that protect siRNA stably in the body. This study is focused to elucidate the correlation between complex stability and transfection efficiency of siRNA carriers. The carriers were prepared by using polymer nanoassemblies made of a cationic branched polymer [poly(ethylene imine): bPEI] to which hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) polymers were tethered covalently. These polymer tethered nanoassemblies (TNAs) were further modified with lipophilic chains (palmitate: PAL) in the core to stabilize siRNA TNAs complexes through ionic and hydrophobic interactions in combination. The effects of PAL in the core of TNAs were investigated with respect to in vitro transfection, intracellular gene delivery, and toxicity of the complexes, using a human colon cancer HT29 cell line stably expressing a luciferase reporter gene. A commercial transfection agent (RNAiMax) was used as a control. TNAs entrapping siRNA showed the greatest complex stability in the absence of PAL although TNAs with a greater PAL content induced effective intracellular siRNA delivery, while luciferase expression decreased as the amount of PAL increased in the core of TNAs. These results demonstrate that lipophilic components in carriers affect not only complex stability but also intracellular distribution and transfection of siRNA in cancer cells