Synthesis and characterization of N-(2-hydroxy)propyl-3-trimethyl ammonium chitosan chloride for potential application in gene delivery

A series of N-(2-hydroxy)propyl-3-trimethyl ammonium chitosan chloride (HTCC) samples with various degrees of quaternization ranging from 12.4 to 43.7% was synthesized. The structures and properties of HTCC were investigated by FT-IR, 1H NMR, conductometric titration and XRD analysis. It was found that HTCC had a more amorphous structure than chitosan. HTCC samples showed significantly lower cytotoxicity than polyethyleneimine in HepG2 and HeLa cell lines. The samples spontaneously formed complexes with pGL3 luciferase plasmid. These complexes had desirable particle sizes (160–300 nm) and zeta potentials (10.8–18.7 mV) when the weight ratios of HTCC to plasmid altered in the range of 3:1–20:1. In vitro gene transfection results indicated that HTCC had significantly high transfection efficiency compared with chitosan for delivering pGL3 luciferase plasmid to HeLa cells. The results suggest that HTCC could be a promising non-viral vector for safe and efficient DNA delivery.

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► N-(2-Hydroxy)propyl-3-trimethyl ammonium chitosan chloride (HTCC) as gene carrier.
► HTCC could form stable and spherical nano-particle with plasmid DNA (pDNA) spontaneously.
► HTCC/pDNA complexes show substantial increases in gene transfection efficiencies than chitosan/pDNA.