Natural Polysaccharides for siRNA Delivery: Nanocarriers Based on Chitosan, Hyaluronic Acid, and Their Derivatives

Natural polysaccharides are frequently used in the design of drug delivery systems due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, and low toxicity. Moreover, they are diverse in structure, size, and charge, and their chemical functional groups can be easily modified to match the needs of the final application and mode of administration. This review focuses on polysaccharidic nanocarriers based on chitosan and hyaluronic acid for small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery, which are highly positively and negatively charged, respectively. The key properties, strengths, and drawbacks of each polysaccharide are discussed. In addition, their use as efficient nanodelivery systems for gene silencing applications is put into context using the most recent examples from the literature. The latest advances in this field illustrate effectively how chitosan and hyaluronic acid can be modified or associated with other molecules in order to overcome their limitations to produce optimized siRNA delivery systems with promising in vitro and in vivo result

Natural polysaccharides for siRNA delivery: Nanocarriers based on chitosan, hyaluronic acid, and their derivatives

This article belongs to the Special Issue Chitosan-Based Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications.Natural polysaccharides are frequently used in the design of drug delivery systems due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, and low toxicity. Moreover, they are diverse in structure, size, and charge, and their chemical functional groups can be easily modified to match the needs of the final application and mode of administration. This review focuses on polysaccharidic nanocarriers based on chitosan and hyaluronic acid for small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery, which are highly positively and negatively charged, respectively. The key properties, strengths, and drawbacks of each polysaccharide are discussed. In addition, their use as efficient nanodelivery systems for gene silencing applications is put into context using the most recent examples from the literature. The latest advances in this field illustrate effectively how chitosan and hyaluronic acid can be modified or associated with other molecules in order to overcome their limitations to produce optimized siRNA delivery systems with promising in vitro and in vivo results.This review was supported by public funding from Fondo Social de la DGA (grupos DGA) and Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad del Gobierno de España. This work was part funded through the Proyectos I+D+i – Programa Estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad (project n. SAF2014-54763-C2-2-R). I.S.S. acknowledges Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad del Gobierno de España for her FPI grant (BES-2015-071304). A.A. acknowledges Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes for his FPU grant (FPU014/06249). S.G.M. acknowledges Fundación General CSIC (Programa ComFuturo).Peer reviewe