Acid-Degradable Cationic Dextran Particles for the Delivery of siRNA Therapeutics

We report a new acid-sensitive, biocompatible, and biodegradable microparticulate delivery system, spermine modified acetalated-dextran (Spermine-Ac-DEX), which can be used to efficiently encapsulate siRNA. These particles demonstrated efficient gene knockdown in HeLa-luc cells with minimal toxicity. This knockdown was comparable to that obtained using Lipofectamine, a commercially available transfection reagent generally limited to in vitro use due to its high toxicity.