Comparison of chitosan, alginate and chitosan/alginate nanoparticles with respect to their size, stability, toxicity and transfection

Abstract

To to compare the chitosan/alginate, chitosan and alginate nanoparticles as plasmid vectors, to determine the morphological characteristics, size and physicochemical properties of nanoparticle-pEGFP complexes and to evaluate the potential of these nanoparticles in transfection of pEGFP plasmid in to a cultured the human embryonic kidney cell line (HEK 293 cells). Nanoparticles comprising chitosan, alginate and both chitosan-alginate polymers were formed through pregel preparation method. The ability of plasmid-complexes in preventing DNA migration were assessed by the agarose gel assay. The efficiency of nanoparticles in transfection of pEGFP plasmid in the cultured HEK 293 cells was measured by flow cytometry. The effect of the nanoparticle-plasmid complexes on the cell viability was determined using cytotoxicity assay. Chitosan, alginate and alginate/chitosan nanoparticles had a mean Z-average diameter of 620 nm, 235.8 nm and 161.8 nm and mean zeta potential of 45 mV, −18.6 mV and 29.3 mV, respectively. Chitosan and chitosan/alginate nanoparticles have greater capacity to maintain plasmid than alginate nanoparticles. Alginate nanoparticles had the greater transfection in comparison to the others. Cell viability assays indicated that nanoparticles had no toxic effect on HEK 293 cells after 4 h or 24 h. The combination of particle surface, hydrophobicity size and zeta potential can influence on transfection efficiency and the cellular uptake of the nanoparticles. Our suitable candidate for gene delivery would be alginate/chitosan nanoparticles.