A glutathione-sensitive cationic polymer delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 RNA plasmid for targeting nasopharyngeal carcinoma gene therapy

CRISPR-Cas9 technology has been proven to be the most straightforward and accurate tool for gene therapy, but some limitations, such as the inefficient transfection or inability to precisely target, prevent the gene therapy from achieving the desired therapeutic effect. To overcome these, a kind of glutathione-sensitive cationic vectors, hyperbranched polyamide amine (HPAA) was designed for Delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 RNA plasmid, and the cyclic RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) was conjugated for the targeted treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Disulfide bonds in HPAA segments can specifically respond to the high glutathione concentration in the tumor microenvironment. Meanwhile, RGD could especially interact to the integrin αvβ3 receptors which are highly expressed on the surface of NPC tumor cells. The results showed that more HPAA-RGD/SGK3-gRNA complexes could be uptaken by NPC HNE-1 cells after RGD was conjugated, and then the plasmid could be accumulated in the NPC tumor as well, which may assure the satisfied NPC therapy effect in vivo. In transfection assays, this complex showed the acceptable gene transfection efficiency in vitro and the obvious tumor inhibition effect in vivo, suggested a potential application in gene therapy to NPC.