pH-Sensitive Cationic Polymer/DNA Nano-assemblies for Efficient Gene Transfection in Neuroma Cells

Transfectionof functional genetic molecules into neuroma cellsto efficiently manipulate gene expression is of great significancein neuro-associated gene therapy. However, most of the current neuromacell gene carriers are based on viruses, which often suffer from inherentimmunogenicity, carcinogenicity, and insertional mutagenesis. Here,a pH-sensitive linear poly(ortho ester) polycation (POP) with a uniformdistribution of tertiary amine and hydroxyl groups is prepared byring-opening polymerization between 4,4 '-(oxybis(methylene))bis(2-methoxy-1,3-dioxolane)(OEDe) and piperazine. The prepared POP/DNA nano-assemblies show goodstability and ultrasensitively controlled DNA release. Significantly,this linear polymer exhibits good biocompatibility and highly specifiedtransfection efficiency (similar to 80%) on human neuroblastoma cells(SH-SY5Y), which is also serum-tolerant and exhibits deeper transfectiondepth. Besides, the non-responsive poly(ethylene glycol) diglycidylether (EGDE) polycation (PEP) is set as a control, fully demonstratingthat the gene carrier POP has great potential in neuroma therapy.