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Updated: May 26, 2026

Evaluation of Polymeric Gene Delivery Nanoparticles by Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis and High-throughput Flow Cytometry
Published on: March 1, 2013
Synthetic poly(ester amine) and poly(amido amine) nanoparticles for efficient DNA and siRNA delivery to human
Stephany Y Tzeng1, Peter H Yang, Warren L Grayson
1Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Institute for NanoBioTechnology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21231, USA.
Abstract:
Biodegradable poly(ester amine) (PEA)-based and poly(amido amine) (PAA)-based nanoparticles were developed for efficient in vitro siRNA delivery to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). They were screened, characterized, and compared with traditionally studied DNA-containing particles. Several of the polymeric nanoparticles tested were found to be effective for delivering functional siRNA to green fluorescent protein (GFP) + HUVECs, achieving 60%-75% GFP knockdown while maintaining high viability. While PEAs have been used previously to form polyplexes or nanoparticles for DNA delivery, highly effective siRNA delivery in hard-to-transfect human cell types has not been previously reported. PEAs and linear nondendrimeric PAAs were also found to be effective for DNA delivery to HUVECs using GFP-encoding plasmid DNA (up to 50%-60% transfection efficiency). PEAs and PAAs can be separated into groups that form polymeric nanoparticles effective for siRNA delivery, for DNA delivery, or for both.

