High efficient delivery of siRNA into tumor cells by positively charged carbon dots

Abstract

Nowadays development of safe and simple siRNA delivery system is still a great challenge. Carbon dots have attracted considerable attention in bioimaging, drug delivery, nanosensors, and other fields during the past few years. In this study, we successfully developed carbon dots (TEPA-CDs) as siRNA nanocarriers based on glucose and tetraethylene pentamine. TEPA-CDs have a mean diameter of less than 10 nm and positive charged decoration. TEPA-CDs could condense siRNA into stable complexes without no obvious premature release. Cellular uptake analysis clearly showed that Cy3-labeled siRNA could be uptake by HeLa cells. GFP expression in HeLa-EGFP cells could be significantly inhibited by TEPA-CDs/siRNA complexes. Our study indicated that TEPA-CDs could be used as a siRNA nanocarrier to tumor cells.

Keywords:

• Carbon dots
• siRNA
• drug delivery
• gene silencing
• cellular uptake

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Fundation of China (NO. 81601073 and 81771304), and Project of Health Department of Jilin Province of China (SCZSY201616).