Study on cellular internalization of poly(vinyldiaminotriazine)-based hydrogen bonding type non-viral transgene vector

Previously we successfully prepared poly(vinyldiaminotriazine)(PVDT)-based non-viral vectors which complexed plasmid DNA via hydrogen bonding with adenine-thymine base pairs. In this report, surface charges and complex sizes of this system were further examined. The results showed that PVDT-based polymer could cover surface charges of DNA resulting in slightly negative or neutral complexes. It was also found that the complex sizes were governed by two events: the aggregation induced by the instability of neutral particles, and more compact complexes produced by PVDT-based polymers. In the study of cellular uptake, chlorpromazine and filipin III were used to inhibit clathrin-and caveolae-mediated endocytosis, respectively. We found that PVDT-based systems were transported into cells via a non-clathrin, non-caveolae mediated endocytosis. This special process was studied by temperature inhibition and kinetics assays. It was revealed that such a pathway was characterized by (i) a more energy dependent process and (ii) a much slow transfection-effective internalization.