In vitro study onRGD-immobllized chitosan nanoparticles as gene vectors

：Objective To investigategene transfection efficiency in cell culture mediated by chitosan Nanoparticlesimmobilized with Arg-Gly-Asp(arginine-glycine-aspartic acid,RGD)-peptides.MothodsRGD-peptides was immobilized on chitosan by chemical crosslinking. Plasmid pEGFP-Cl wasencapsulated into Chitosan-RGD-nanoparticles (Chitosan-RGD-pEGFP-NPs) by complexcoacervation method. Chitusan-pEGFP-nanoparticles without RGD were used as the control toevaluate gene tranfection efficiency into Hy926 cells in vitro.Results The transfectionefficiency of Chitosan-RGD-pEGFP-NPs is statistically higher thanChitosan-pEGFP-NPs.(35.7% vs 14.3%,P<0.001) Conclusion Chitosan-RGD NPs could act asgene vector to transfect specific gene in vitro and the transfection efficiency is higherthan that of non-RGD chitosan nanoparticles. Key words: Arg-Gly-Asp-peptides; Chitosan; Nanoparticles; Gene vectors