Aptamer-targeted delivery of Bcl-xL shRNA using alkyl modified PAMAM dendrimers into lung cancer cells

[Display omitted] •Nanoparticles were synthesized by PAMAM modification with 10-bromodecanoic acid (10C) and 10C-PEG.•AS1411 aptamer-conjugated modified PAMAM efficiently delivered Bcl-xL shRNA to human lung cancer cell line (A549).•Aptamer conjugated vector-shRNA complexes could efficiently knockdown the expression of Bcl-xL protein and induce apoptosis. RNAi-based gene therapy has been recently considered as a promising approach against cancer. Targeted delivery of drug, gene or therapeutic RNAi-based systems to tumor cells is one of the important issues in order to reduce side effects on normal cells. Several strategies have been developed to improve the safety and selectivity of cancer treatments including antibodies, peptides and recently aptamers with various attractive characteristics including higher target specificity, affinity and reduced toxicity. Here we described a novel targeted delivery platform comprising modified PAMAM with 10-bromodecanoic acid (10C) and 10C-PEG for improvement of transfection efficiency, AS1411 aptamer for targeting nucleolin ligand on target cancer cells and shRNA plasmid for specific knockdown of Bcl-xL protein. Modified vector could significantly improve the transfection efficiency even after covalent or non-covalent aptamer binding compared to the non-targeted vector in A549 cells. The results of gene silencing and apoptosis assay indicated that our targeted shRNA delivery system could efficiently down-regulate the Bcl-xL expression up to 25% and induce 14% late apoptosis in target cancer cells with strong cell selectivity. This study proposed a novel targeted non-viral system for shRNA-mediated gene-silencing in cancer cells.