Flexible cyclic siloxane core enhances the transfection efficiency of polyethylenimine-based non-viral gene vectors

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

-AGE-PEI) tends to adopt an asymmetric structure, specific for amphipathic molecules (confirmed by a log P value of -1.902 ± 0.06), that favors a rapid interaction with nucleic acids. The conjugate and the polyplexes with the pEYFP plasmid were proved to be non-cytotoxic, and capable of ensuring transfection yields better than 30%, on HEK 293T cell culture, superior to the value obtained using the SuperFect® reagent. We presume that the increased transfection efficacy originates in the ability of the conjugate to locally tightly encompass pDNA molecules by electrostatic interaction mediated by the short PEI branches, and consequently to expose the siloxane hydrophobic moiety, which decreases the interaction energy with the lipid layers.