(340g) Enhancing Electroporation with Targeted Gold Nanoparticles

The emerging physical gene delivery methods, electroporation in particular, offer surgery-like treatment, quick delivery response, and almost no restrictions on cell type and exogenous material properties. They have successfully been applied to facilitate delivery of various molecular probes and understand biological functions and transport at the cellular level. Conventional electroporation has been reasonably successful while carrying several major drawbacks, including including high electric voltage, large DNA consumption, low transfection efficiency and/or cell viability. Here we use gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with or without or targeting molecules to improve the performance of electroporation on gene delivery to mammalian cells. AuNPs are used to facilitate the polarization and permeability of the cell membrane when imposing electric pulses. Targeting molecules such as transferin help bring AuNPs and/or DNA close to cells. In this way, the uptake of DNA molecules is enhanced by allowing more molecules to enter the cell cytoplasm before the disappearance of the transient pores and the cell recovery. AuNPs of various sizes, geometries, and concentration are tested. The delivery efficiency was evaluated with both anchor cells (i.e., NIH 3T3) and suspension cells (i.e., K562). Gold nanoparticles show excellent biocompatibility and are facile for surface functionalization. The transfection efficiency was found much enhanced with targeted gold nanoparticles as compared to conventional electroporation. This study provides a new approach on improving the deliver efficiency of nucleic acid or anticancer drugs through the combination of targeted nanoparticles and electroporation.