(227r) A Versatile Peptide – Polysaccharide Platform for Nucleic Acids Delivery

Gene therapy has drawn significant interest in the past two decades since it provides promising strategy to treat both genetic disorders and acquired diseases. However, the transfer of gene therapy to clinical applications is troubled with many difficulties, since many current systems are of toxicity, low transfection efficiency and low biodegradability. To address these challenges, we developed a polysaccharide-peptide hybrid system as a safe and efficient vector for plasmid DNA and microRNA delivery, and investigated the structure-function-cytotoxicity relationship of this polysaccharide-peptide hybrid system. Our results indicate that this polysaccharide-peptide hybrid system is a very promising platform for safe and efficient delivery of a broad range of nucleic acids.