Safe and efficient gene delivery based on rice bran polysaccharide

Polysaccharides are capable of being modified by polycations to adjust their physical and chemical properties, which accordingly are considered as potential candidate materials for safe and efficient gene delivery. Here, we extracted and purified polysaccharides from rice bran, and their physicochemical properties were determined by various methods. Polyethyleneimine (PEI) modified rice bran polysaccharide (PRBP) was prepared by grafting RBP with low molecular weight PEI and the preparation was determined by FTIR. The potential of PRBP as a gene vector was systematically evaluated in vitro. The results show that PRBP can compact DNA and form PRBP/DNA polylexes with a particle size of 50-100 nm. The PRBP/DNA polylexes can protect DNA degradation from DNase I efficiently. Compared with PEI, higher transfection efficiency was achieved by the PRBP. At weight ratio of 3, the highest efficiency of gene transfection mediated by PRBP-2000 was obtained, which was 37.5% and significantly higher than PEI and commercial reagents (calcium phosphate cell transfection kit) and was closed to lipo6000. Furthermore, according to MTT results, the cytotoxicity of PRBP is much lower than that of PEI, especially for PEI2000. We hope these results will provide new strategy for rice bran polysaccharides development and application as biomaterials.