Sulfhydryl reactive microspheres for the efficient delivery of thiolated bioactive cargoes

Abstract

A novel strategy for the efficient and safe delivery of thiolated therapeutic cargoes into mammalian cells has been developed. For this purpose, polymeric microspheres have been successfully functionalised to become a sulfhydryl reactive delivery system. SEM, DLS and zeta potential analysis were used to characterise these modified nanoparticles. The strategy has been validated by successfully conjugating a thiolated fluorophore and siRNA which silence GFP expression. The high efficiency of siRNA–microsphere conjugates as gene silencing devices has been demonstrated by microscopy and flow cytometry.