Regenerative Biomaterials, 2019, 1–10 doi: 10.1093/rb/rby028 Research article The proper strategy to compress and protect plasmid DNA in the Pluronic L64-electropulse Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/rb/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/rb/rby028/5305061 by guest on 08 February 2019 system for enhanced intramuscular gene delivery Yutong He1,†, Yili Liu1,2,†, Zhe Sun1, Fei Han1, James Zhenggui Tang3, Rong Gao2 and Gang Wang1,* 1National Engineering Research Center for Biomaterials; 2Key Laboratory for Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry Education, College of Life Science, Sichuan University, No. 29, Wangjiang Road, Chengdu, Sichuan 610064, P.R. China; 3Research Institute in Healthcare Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering, School of Pharmacy, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton WV11SB, UK *Correspondence address. National Engineering Research Center for Biomaterials, Sichuan University, No. 29, Wangjiang Road, Chengdu, Sichuan 610064, P.R. China. Tel: þ86-28-85412848; Fax: þ86-28-85412848; E-mail:
[email protected] † These authors contributed equally to this work. Received 15 September 2018; revised 30 October 2018; accepted on 26 November 2018 Abstract Intramuscular expression of functional proteins is a promising strategy for therapeutic purposes. Previously, we developed an intramuscular gene delivery method by combining Pluronic L64 and optimized electropulse, which is among the most efficient methods to date. However, plasmid DNAs (pDNAs) in this method were not compressed, making them unstable and inefficient in vivo. We considered that a proper compression of pDNAs by an appropriate material should facilitate gene expression in this L64-electropulse system. Here, we reported our finding of such a material, Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a natural compound in green teas, which could compress and pro- tect pDNAs and significantly increase intramuscular gene expression in the L64-electropulse sys- tem.