Nanocomposite Nucleic Acid Delivery Devices

描述(申请人提供)：这个项目的目标是开发一种新的多层纳米颗粒，这种纳米颗粒将被优化用于非病毒基因和寡核苷酸的输送。纳米颗粒的每一层在有效地将核酸运送到细胞中起着重要的作用。利用自组装技术，将制造出一种高容量结合DNA的金属纳米复合粒子，其表面为细胞内化优化。这些传输粒子的一个独特特征是，入射光激发等离子体共振，粒子强烈散射光。即使在尺寸小于100纳米的情况下，这些颗粒也会成像为彩色的点光源，并可以使用暗视野显微镜在细胞内部单独识别。通过监测复杂核酸递送过程中每一步颗粒的位置和DNA载量，将确定最佳颗粒配方，以最大限度地提高已被确定为癌症基因治疗前景的靶点的细胞系的转染效率。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This goal of this project is to develop a new class of multi-layered nanoparticles that will be optimized for non-viral gene and oligonucleotide delivery. Each layer of the nanoparticles plays an important role in the efficient transport and delivery of nucleic acids to cells. Using self-assembly techniques, a metal nanocomposite particle that binds DNA at a high capacity and has a surface that is optimized for cell internalization will be fabricated. A unique characteristic of these delivery particles is that incident light excites a plasmon resonance and the particles intensely scatter light. Even at sizes below 100 nm, the particles image as colored point sources of light and can be individually identified in the interior of cells using dark field microscopy. By monitoring the position and DNA loading of the particles at each step in the complex nucleic acid delivery process, optimal particle formulations will be determined that maximize transfection efficiencies in cell lines that have been identified as promising targets for cancer gene therapy.