Efficient gene delivery by urocanic acid-modified chitosan

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Engineered Polyallylamine Nanoparticles for Efficient In Vitro Transfection

“…To overcome this obstacle, addition of lysosomotropic agents, such as chloroquine is required to facilitate the escape from endosome, which limits its in vivo applications. More recently, it has been reported that imidazolyl moiety, by virtue of its proton sponge property, improves transfection efficiency of polycations like PLL, PEI and chitosan (25)(26)(27)(28)(29). The weakly basic imidazolyl group with pKa being within the acidic range of endosome lumen (pH 5.5-6.5) acts as proton sponge inside the endosome compartment.…”

Amphoteric hyaluronic acid derivative for targeting gene delivery

“…Recently, significant concerns have focused on the non-viral vector since they have the potential to be administered repeatedly with minimal host immune response, targetable, stable in storage and easy to produce in large quantities [1,2]. However, non-viral vectors should overcome many barriers such as low efficiency in delivery to target cells, escape from endosome, internalization into the nucleus, transcription and translation of DNA.…”

pH‐Responsive Polymers as Gene Carriers

“…Addition of dioleoyl phosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE), or cholesteryl hemisuccinate (CHEMS) to these formulations affected the pH-sensitivity of the formulations. [45] The formulations having DOPE/CHEMS were stable at neutral or basic pH but they became fusogenic at lower pH. The fusogenicity arises largely because of the adopted inverted-cone shape of DOPE, which facilitates the transition of a bilayer lipid phase to a hexagonal II phase.…”

“…However its major disadvantage is a low transfection efficiency owing to the poor buffering capacity for endosomal escape. Kim et al [45] introduced urocanic acid (UA) having an imidazole ring, which plays a crucial role in endosomal rupture through its pH-responsive property. The transfection efficiency in 293T cells by UAmodified chitosan (UAC) (Figure 6a)/DNA complexes increased with an increase of substitution degree of UA owing to the pH-buffering capacity in the endosomal compartment.…”