Polyethylenimine-coated gold-magnetic nanoparticles for ADAM10 siRNA delivery in prostate cancer cells

For an effective medical application of therapeutic siRNA, a safe and an efficient delivery system are required. Herein, magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been successfully used as siRNA delivery vehicles. Firstly, MNPs were coated with gold (Au) nanoparticles and then capped with PEI. To improve the biocompatibility of nanoparticles, hyaluronic acid (HA) was coated onto the surface of PEI-Au/Fe nanoparticles. The prepared HA-PEI-Au/Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles were characterized and found to be uniform and well segregated in TEM analysis. FTIR analysis confirmed that HA was successfully conjugated to PEI. The polymer content in these nanoparticles was relatively higher than PEG coated nanoparticles. Cell viability assay demonstrated that the nanoparticles were relatively biocompatible in nature. ADAM10 siRNA was loaded into the HA-PEI-Au/Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles and cytotoxicity to prostate cancer (PC3) cells was analyzed. The results indicate that ADAM10 siRNA loaded HA-PEI-Au/Fe 3 O 4 suppress the PC3 cells growth in vitro. Clearly, it could be confirmed that HA-PEI coated Au/Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles with higher biocompatibility appear to be suitable for intracellular siRNA delivery.