Lazarus Geraldine Genevive, Revaprasadu Neerish, López-Viota Julián, Singh Moganavelli
Discipline of Biochemistry, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X 54001, Durban 4000, South Africa; Department of Chemistry, University of Zululand, Private Bag X1001, KwaDlangezwa 3886, South Africa; Department of Applied Physics, Hospital Universitario San Cecilio, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Department of Chemistry, University of Zululand, Private Bag X1001, KwaDlangezwa 3886, South Africa.
Colloids Surf B Biointerfaces. 2014 Sep 1;121:425-31. doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2014.06.032. Epub 2014 Jun 19.
Gold nanoparticles have attracted strong biomedical interest for drug delivery due to their low toxic nature, surface plasmon resonance and capability of increasing the stability of the payload. However, gene transfection represents another important biological application. Considering that cellular barriers keep enclosed their secret to deliver genes using nanoparticles, an important step can be achieved by studying the functionalization of nanoparticles with DNA. In the present contribution the synthesis of nanoparticles consisting of a gold core coated with one or more layers of amino acid (l-lysine), and cationic polyelectrolytes (poly-ethyleneimine and poly-l-lysine) is reported. All nanoparticles were subjected to dynamic light scattering, electrophoretic mobility measurements, UV-vis optical spectrophotometry analysis and transmission electron microscopy imaging. In addition, the adsorption of DNA plasmid (pSGS) with linear and supercoiled configurations was studied for those gold nanoparticles under the most suitable surface modifications. Preliminary results showed that the gold nanoparticles functionalized with poly-ethyleneimine and poly-l-lysine, respectively, and bound to linear DNA configurations, present in absolute value a higher electrophoretic mobility irrespective of the pH of the media, compared to the supercoiled and nicked configuration. The findings from this study suggest that poly-ethyleneimine and poly-l-lysine functionalized gold nanoparticles are biocompatible and may be promising in the chemical design and future optimization of nanostructures for biomedical applications such as gene and drug delivery.
由于金纳米颗粒具有低毒性、表面等离子体共振以及增强负载稳定性的能力，因此在药物递送方面引起了强烈的生物医学关注。然而，基因转染是另一个重要的生物学应用。考虑到细胞屏障阻碍了利用纳米颗粒递送基因，通过研究纳米颗粒与DNA的功能化可以迈出重要的一步。在本论文中，报道了由包裹有一层或多层氨基酸（L-赖氨酸）以及阳离子聚电解质（聚乙烯亚胺和聚-L-赖氨酸）的金核组成的纳米颗粒的合成。所有纳米颗粒均进行了动态光散射、电泳迁移率测量、紫外可见分光光度法分析以及透射电子显微镜成像。此外，还研究了在最合适的表面修饰下，那些金纳米颗粒对线性和超螺旋构型的DNA质粒（pSGS）的吸附情况。初步结果表明，与超螺旋和缺口构型相比，分别用聚乙烯亚胺和聚-L-赖氨酸功能化并与线性DNA构型结合的金纳米颗粒，无论介质的pH值如何，其电泳迁移率的绝对值都更高。本研究结果表明，聚乙烯亚胺和聚-L-赖氨酸功能化的金纳米颗粒具有生物相容性，在用于基因和药物递送等生物医学应用的纳米结构的化学设计和未来优化方面可能具有前景。
