Self-Assembly, In Vitro Gene Transfection, and Antimicrobial Activity of Biodegradable Cationic Bolaamphiphiles

Abstract

Bolaamphiphiles or bolaforms have drawn particular interest in drug and gene delivery, and studies of bolaforms have been growing continuously. Bolaforms, due to their unique structure, exhibit specific self-assembly behavior in water. The present work aims to develop biodegradable cationic bolaforms with a better gene transfection ability. In this work, a novel cationic bolaform (Bola-1) with head groups bearing hydroxyl (OH) functionality was designed and synthesized to investigate self-assembly and gene transfection efficiency. The selfassembly behavior of Bola-1 in water was compared with that of the hydrochloride salt (Bola-2) of its precursor molecule to investigate the effect of the −OH functionality on their solution properties. Several techniques, including surface tension, electrical conductivity, fluorescence probe, calorimetry, dynamic light scattering, and atomic force microscopy, were employed for the physicochemical characterization of Bola-1 and Bola-2. Despite the presence of polar urea groups in the spacer chain, both bolaforms were found to form spherical or elongated micelles above a relatively low critical aggregation concentration (CAC). The presence of the OH group was found to significantly affect the CAC value. The results of calorimetric measurements suggested a thermodynamically favorable aggregate formation in salt-free water. Despite stronger binding efficiency with calf thymus DNA, in vitro gene transfection studies performed using adherent cell Hek 293 suggested that both Bola-1 and Bola-2 have gene transfection efficiency comparable to that of turbofectamine standard. Both bolaforms were found to exhibit significant in vitro cytotoxicity at higher concentrations. Also, the bolaforms showed beneficial antibacterial activity at higher concentrations.

Impact of Linker Groups on Self-Assembly, Gene Transfection, Antibacterial Activity, and In Vitro Cytotoxicity of Cationic Bolaamphiphiles

“…Recently, our group has demonstrated that a bolaform having urea (−NH­(CO)­NH−) linkages connecting a 6-carbon spacer chain and cationic head groups bearing hydroxyl functionalities has a promising gene transfection efficiency that is similar to the turbofectamine standard . The urea (−NH­(CO)­NH−) bond is a combination of two amide bonds where both of them may participate in a 3-way hydrogen bonding interaction with the nearby bolaform molecules .…”