Polyethylenimine and Chitosan-Based Non-Viral Carriers for Gene Delivery

Gene delivery, as one critical component of gene therapy, has been widely investigated to develop reliable carriers for efficient gene transfer. Among the mounting carriers, polymers such as polyethylenimine and chitosan attracted considerable attention due to their good biocompatibility and relatively high gene delivery efficiency. In this study, polyethylenimine was utilized as the carrier for plasmid DNA to cells and achieved transfection efficiency as high as 50-60% with the optimized N/P ratio (ratio of nitrogen of polymer to phosphate of DNA) in the range from 6:1 to 3:1. The presence of serum did not affect the gene delivery efficiency of polyethylenimine. However, neither chitosan nor chitosan nanoparticles showed high activity in transferring plasmid DNA into cells. More efforts on the optimization of chitosan properties are warranted to make chitosan a promising carrier for gene delivery. In conclusion, polyethylenimine-based nanoparticles are of great potential in gene delivery and chitosan could become a promising gene delivery carrier with appropriate modifications.