Exploring membrane permeability of Tomatidine to enhance lipid mediated nucleic acid transfections

Intracellular delivery of nucleic acids is one of the critical steps in the transfections. Prior findings demonstrated various strategies including membrane fusion, endosomal escape for the efficient cytoplasmic delivery. In our continuing efforts to improve the nucleic acids transfections, we harnessed cell permeable properties of Tomatidine (T), a steroidal alkaloid abundantly found in green tomatoes for maximizing intracellular delivery of lipoplexes. We doped Tomatidine into liposomes of cationic lipid with amide linker (A) from our lipid library. Six liposomal formulations (AT) of Lipid A (1 mM) with varying concentrations of Tomatidine (0-1 mM) were prepared and evaluated for their transfection efficacies. Owing to its signature characteristic of cell membrane permeability, Tomatidine modulated endocytosis process, enhanced the intracellular delivery of the lipoplexes, and in turn increased the transfection efficacy of cationic liposomes. Our findings provide 'proof of concept' for enhancing transfections in gene delivery applications with Tomatidine in cationic liposomal formulations. These findings can be further applied in lipid mediated gene therapy and drug delivery applications.