The spacer arm length in cell-penetrating peptides influences chitosan/siRNA nanoparticle delivery for pulmonary inflammation treatment

Although chitosan and its derivatives have been frequently utilized as delivery vehicles for small interfering RNA (siRNA), it is challenging to improve the gene silencing efficiency of chitosan-based nanoparticles. In this study, we hypothesized that controlling the spacer arm length between a cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) and a nanoparticle could be critical to enhancing the cellular uptake as well as the gene silencing efficiency of conventional chitosan/siRNA nanoparticles. A peptide consisting of nine arginine units (R9) was used as a CPP, and the spacer arm length was controlled by varying the number of glycine units between the peptide (R9Gn) and the nanoparticle (n = 0, 4, and 10). Various physicochemical characteristics of R9Gn-chitosan/siRNA nanoparticles were investigated in vitro. Increasing the spacing arm length did not significantly affect the complex formation between R9Gn-chitosan and siRNA. However, R9G10-chitosan was much more effective in delivering genes both in vitro and in vivo compared with non-modified chitosan (without the peptide) and R9-chitosan (without the spacer arm). Chitosan derivatives modified with oligoarginine containing a spacer arm can be considered as potential delivery vehicles for various genes.