International Journal of Nanomedicine (Jun 2021)
Intracellular Delivery of Proteins into Living Cells by Low-Molecular-Weight Polyethyleneimine
Abstract
Yueheng Wu,1,2,* Lin jiang,2,* Zixuan Dong,1 Shaoxian Chen,2 Xi-Yong Yu,2 Shunqing Tang1 1National Engineering Research Center for Healthcare Devices, Guangdong Institute of Medical Instruments, Biomedical Engineering Institute, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of South China Structural Heart Disease, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510080, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Shunqing TangNational Engineering Research Center for Healthcare Devices, Guangdong Institute of Medical Instruments, Biomedical Engineering Institute, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [email protected]: Intracellular protein delivery is emerging as a potential strategy to revolutionize therapeutics in the field of biomedicine, aiming at treating a wide range of diseases including cancer, inflammatory diseases and other oxidative stress-related disorders with high specificity. However, the current challenges and limitations are addressed to either synthetically or biologically through multipotency of engineering, such as protein modification, insufficient delivery of large-size proteins, deficiency or mutation of proteins, and high cytotoxicity.Methods: We prepared the nanocomposites by mixing protein with PEI1200 at a certain molar ratio and demonstrated that it can deliver proteins into living cells in high efficiency and safety through the following experiments, such as dynamic light scattering, fluorescent detection, agarose gel electrophoresis, ß-Galactosidase activity detection, immunofluorescence staining, digital fluorescent detection, cell viability assay and flow cytometry.Results: The self-assembly of PEI1200/protein nanocomposites with appropriate molar ratio (4:1 and 8:1) could provide efficiently delivery of active proteins to a variety of cell types in the presence of serum. The nanocomposites could continuously release protein up to 96 h in their desired intracellular locations. In addition, these nanocomposites were able to preserve protein activity while maintain low cytotoxicity (when final concentration < 1 μg/mL).Conclusion: Collectively, PEI1200-based delivery system provided an alternative strategy to direct protein delivery in high efficiency and safety, offering increased potential applications in clinical biomedicine.Keywords: polyethyleneimine, protein delivery, nanocomposites, low-molecular-weight, cytotoxicity
