P53-Derived peptides conjugation to PEI: an approach to producing versatile and highly efficient targeted gene delivery carriers into cancer cells

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Targeted delivery of cytotoxic drugs or therapeutic antisense RNAs into specific cells is a major bottleneck in cancer therapy. To overcome this problem and improve the specificity for cancer cells, we describe a new-targeted delivery system using p53-derived peptides, namely PNC 27 and PNC 28. These peptides target HDM-2 on the surface of cancer cells. HDM-2 is overexpressed on the surface of cancerous cells, but not present on the untransformed cells.

Methods: To determine HDM-2-expressing cells, we used immunocytochemistry and flow cytometry analysis on nine cell lines including MCF-7 and NIH-3t3. Conjugation of peptides to vectors was confirmed using reverse-phase high-pressure liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). Physicochemical properties of vector/DNA complexes including particle size, surface charge and DNA condensation ability were determined. In transfection studies, three plasmids were used including luciferase, pEGFP and shRNA plasmid against Bcl-XL mRNA. The level of Bcl-XL expression was determined by real-time PCR and western blot techniques.

Results: The results of gene delivery and shRNA-based gene silencing studies indicated that conjugation of PNC peptides could enhance gene delivery efficiently with high-targeted activity exclusively into cancer cells.

Conclusion: Our results strongly indicated that this targeting system could be utilized as an efficient targeting method for most cancer cells.

KEYWORDS:

• Cancer
• PNC peptide
• shRNA
• targeted gene delivery

Declaration of interest

The authors were supported by Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran (grant #900761). Additional financial support provided by the Iranian Nanotechnology Initiative Council (grant #90885) is gratefully acknowledged. The results reported in the present study are part of the postgraduate thesis of Ahad Mokhtarzadeh. All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

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