Design and characterization of microporous hyaluronic acid hydrogels for in vitro gene transfer to mMSCs.

ABSTRACT: The effective and sustained delivery of DNA locally could increase the applicability of gene therapy in tissue regeneration and therapeutic angiogenesis. One promising approach is to use porous hydrogel scaffolds to encapsulate and deliver nucleotides in the form of nanoparticles to the affected sites. We have designed and characterized microporous (μ-pore) hyaluronic acid hydrogels which allow for effective cell seeding in vitro post-scaffold fabrication and allow for cell spreading and proliferation without requiring high levels of degradation. These factors, coupled with high loading efficiency of DNA polyplexes using a previously developed caged nanoparticle encapsulation (CnE) technique, then allowed for long-term sustained transfection and transgene expression of incorporated mMSCs.

SUBMITTER: Tokatlian T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3678541 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature