Monodisperse poly(lactide-co-glycolic acid)-based nanocarriers for gene transfection

This contribution describes a simple, aerosol-based method for fabricating monodisperse particles containing mixtures of poly(lactide-co-glycolic acid) [PLGA], protamine sulfate (Prot), and poly(l-lysine) [PLL] as nanocarriers for gene transfection. Aqueous solutions of PLGA, Prot, and PLL were collison-atomized, and the resulting aerosolized droplets were dried "on the fly" to form solid particles, which then were electrostatically size-classified into 50, 100, and 200 nm mobility diameter samples. Measurements of cell viability and transfection reveal that the fabricated nanocarriers have a lower cytotoxicity (>85% in cell viability) and a higher transfection efficiency [>8.7 × 10⁵ in relative light units (RLU) mg ^-1] than does 25 kDa polyethyleneimine (≈50% and 6.8 × 10⁵ RLU mg^-1). One-step fabrication of monodisperse PLGA-based mixture polymer nanocarriers is demonstrated using a single-pass aerosol system, a collison atomizer, and a nano differential mobility analyzer. This allows the generation of monodisperse polymeric nanocarriers in a simple manner. This strategy can be applied as a new platform for polymeric nanocarrier preparation without wet and time- consuming chemical routes.