Royal Society of Chemistry, Journal of Materials Chemistry B: Materials for biology and medicine, 35(2), p. 5758
DOI: 10.1039/c4tb00701h
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The αvβ3 and αvβ5 integrin, transmembrane glycoprotein receptors, are over-expressed in numerous tumors and in endothelial cells that constitute tumor blood vessels. As this protein selectively binds to Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) sequence containing peptides, it is an attractive way to target tumor. Herein we have developed novel formulations for integrin mediated selective gene delivery. These formulations are composed of a novel palmitoylated tetrameric RGD containing scaffold (named RAFT-RGD), cationic gemini cholesterol (GL5) and a natural helper lipid 1, 2-dioleoyl-L--glycero-3-phosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE). We have optimized a co-liposomal formulation to introduce the multivalent RGD-containing macromolecule in GL5: DOPE (GL5D) mixture to produce GL5D-RGD. We have unambiguously shown the selectivity of these formulations towards cancer cells that over express αvβ3 and αvβ5 integrins. Two reporter plasmids, pEGFP-C3 and PGL-3 were employed for the transfection experiments and it was shown that GL5D-RGD liposomes increased exclusively the transfection in αvβ3 and αvβ5-overexpressing HeLa cells.