| Summary: | Recently, novel DNA compaction agents, ε-oligo(L-lysines) and their branched α-amino-acid substituted derivatives, have been successfully tested as vectors for in vitro gene delivery. The present work exploits a number of newly developed ε-oligolysine-based peptides: ε-(LYRH)K10, ε-(LYH)K10, ε-(LYK)K10, ε-(LKY)K10 and ε-(YKL)K10. ε-oligolysine backbone was synthesized with degree of polymerization 10 and α-amino acid triplets (amino acids in the brackets) were attached to each of the α-amino group of ε-oligolysine (Fig. 1). Since it was found that combined effect of lipids and polycations can greatly enhance transfection efficiency, our novel ε-peptides were used in the combination of cationic liposome DOTAP (1,2-dioleoyl-3-trimethylammonium-propane), resulting in a ternary complex liposome/ε-peptides/DNA (LPD).
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