Gene delivery to neuroblastoma cells by polyethylenimine- liposome copolymers

Gene therapy is one of the potential alternatives in the cancer treatment, It s advantaged contain high selectivity and limited side effects, but lack of efficient and safe nucleic acids delivery system is the most limiting problem. The cationic polymers and lipid-based nonviral vectors have mainly introduced for gene delivery purposes. In the present study, we utilized benefits of both cationic liposomes andcationic polymer vectors. we bound dexamethasone (Dexa) to branched polyethyleneimine (b-PEI), in combinations with cationic liposomes as a nonviral system to improve transfection efficiency. Lipopolyplex was developed by premixing liposome (DOTAP and cholesterol) and different Mw of bPEI-Dexa as carriers following by addition of plasmid at three different C/P ratios. Transfectionefficiency of these vectors in neuro2A,a mouse neuroblastoma cell line was determined by Luciferase reporter gene assay.Lipopolyplexes were more efficient than polyplexes and lipoplexes alone andtransfection efficiency was improved by adding dexamethasone. The complexes containing liposome, PEI 10 kDa and dexamethasone (PEI10: Lipo:Dexa(0.05)) had the highest transfection activity about40 fold and 3.6 fold in compare with PEI10 and PEI10:Lipo, respectively.The results of this study confirmed that obtained lipopolyplex deliver gene to cancer cell efficiency. Moreover, using dexamethasone, in combination with lipopolyplex might be useful to increase the gene delivery potential of these lipopolyplexes