Dispersing zwitterions into comb polymers for nonviral transfection; Experiments and molecular simulation

非ウイルストランスフェクションを目指した櫛方高分子への両性イオンの分散; 実験とシミュレーション

Ghobadi, A. F.*; Letteri, R.*; Parelkar, S. S.*; Zhao, Y.; Chan-Seng, D.*; Emrick, T.*; Jayaraman, A.*

Ghobadi, A. F.*; Letteri, R.*; Parelkar, S. S.*; Zhao, Y.; Chan-Seng, D.*; Emrick, T.*; Jayaraman, A.*

We report the effect of embedding zwitterionic sulfobetaine (SB) groups in cationic comb polymers on polymer-DNA binding complexes (polyplexes), using a combination of experiments and molecular simulations. Ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) produced comb polymers with tetralysine (K4) and SB pendent groups. Dynamic light scattering, zeta potential measurements, and fluorescence-based experiments, together with coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, described the effect of SB groups on the size, shape, surface charge, composition, and DNA binding strength of polyplexes formed using these comb polymers. Experiments and simulations showed that increasing SB composition in the comb polymers decreased polymer-DNA binding strength, while the SB groups distributed throughout the polyplex. This allows polyplexes to maintain a positive surface charge and provide high levels of gene expression in live cells.