Positive hyaluronan/PEI/DNA complexes as a target-specific intracellular delivery to malignant breast cancer

In the present study, The PEI/DNA (PD) complexes was first prepared with positive surface charge under a suitable N/P ratio of 10. The redundant positive charge was partially and excessively shielded by a polysaccharide, hyaluronic acid (HA), in aqueous solution. The HA/PEI/DNA ternary complexes were characterized by assessing the zeta potential and size, then transferred to MDA-MB-435, MDA-MB-231, and MCF-7 cell lines with different amounts of HA-specific CD44 receptors on the surface. Consequently, The transfection efficiency of all the prepared complexes show a little increased to MCF-7 (low CD44 level) while a large increased to MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-435 cells (high CD44 level) with adding HA. Also, when HA:PEI charge ratio was 7.5%, the ternary complexes show the highest transfection efficiency. The prepared ternary complexes exhibited increased 2–13-fold fluorescence intensity and lower cell toxicity compared to the PD (N/P, 10). These results indicated that the positive HA/PEI/DNA ternary complexes (HA:PEI charge ratio, 7.5%) can target malignant breast cancer cells with high CD44 level and might be a promising candidate vector for gene therapy.