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Turkish Journal of Biology

Abstract

Background/aimApplication of biocompatible heavy metal free and cationic Ag2S NIR QDs, which are highly luminesce in the medical range (700-900 nm), as a non-viral gene delivery system paves the way to overcome the auto-fluorescence and easily track the delivery of the genes in real time as it happens.Materials and methodsHere, the newly developed small and colloidally stable 2-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA)-capped Ag2S aqueous quantum dots electrostatically complexed with linear polyethyleneimine (LPEI) (Ag2S@2MPA/LPEI) was investigated for the first time both as a strong fluorescent probe and as a non-viral gene delivery vector for the highest tracking of the system and delivery of genes into nuclei of different cancer cells. Synthesized Ag2S@2MPA/LPEI quantum dots demonstrated strong optical imaging properties and were used to deliver green fluorescent protein (GFP) plasmid as a standard gene.ResultsThe transfection efficiency of Ag2S@2MPA/LPEI-pDNA nanoparticles was optimal at an N/P ratio of 20. In comparison to the free 25-kDa linear polyethylenimine (LPEI), Ag2S@2MPA/LPEI turn out to be significantly more compatible towards HEK 293T cells. Next, the transfection efficiency evaluation of pGFP genes with synthesized Ag2S@2MPA/LPEI and LPEI in different cancer cells demonstrated high potential of this cargo as theranostic cancer gene delivery system.ConclusionThis is the first example to gene transfection and optical imaging performed with Ag2S@2MPA/LPEI QDs, in vitro. Overall, newly synthesized highly biocompatible and tractable Ag2S@2MPA/LPEI quantum dots can be an effective and biocompatible theranostic system for cancer gene therapy.

Author ORCID Identifier

ALTAY SAVALAN: 0000-0003-3925-9645

DOI

10.55730/1300-0152.2709

Keywords

Ag2S near-infrared quantum dots (Ag2S NIR QDs), biocompatible, cancer therapy, green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene, linear polyethyleneimine (LPEI), theranostic nanoparticle

First Page

338

Last Page

347

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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