Microbubble ultrasound contrast agents are being developed as image-guided gene carriers for targeted delivery in vivo. In this study, novel polyethylenimine(PEI)-based polyplex-microbubbles were synthesized, characterized and evaluated for systemic circulation and tumor transfection. The PEI-microbubbles demonstrated increasingly positive surface charge and DNA loading capacity with increasing polymer content. Site-specific delivery to mouse xenograft tumors was achieved with targeted ultrasound following systemic injection of the DNA/PEI-microbubbles. Overall, polyplex-microbubbles offer control of DNA loading and packaging suitable for ultrasound-guided tissue transfection.

Polyplex-microbubble hybrids for ultrasound-guided plasmid DNA delivery to solid tumors

245th National Meeting (2013)

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