Abstract
SiRNAs may act as selective and potent therapeutics, but poor deliverability in vivo is a limitation. Among the recently proposed vectors, cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs), also referred as protein transduction domains (PTDs), allow siRNA stabilization and increased cellular uptake. This chapter aims to guide scientists in the preparation and characterization of CPP-siRNA complexes, particularly the evaluation of novel CPPs variants for siRNA encapsulation and delivery. Herein, we present a collection of methods to determine CPP-siRNA interaction, encapsulation, stability, conformation, transfection, and silencing efficiency.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge funding support from the European Union PathChooser Marie-Curie Initial Training Network (ITN)(PITN-GA-2013-608373), the Lundbeckfonden Center of Excellence NanoCAN, the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) DAWN-2020 project of the SDU Presidents SDU2020 program, the Danish Cancer Society, A Race Agaisnt Breast Cancer and the A.P. Moeller Foundation. Moreover, we acknowledge the Danish Molecular Biomedical Imaging Center (DaMBIC; University of Southern Denmark) for the use of the bioimaging facilities, and Prof. Jesper Wengel (Biomolecular Nanoscale Engineering Center, University of Southern Denmark) for providing the tdTomato1 siRNA.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Tuttolomondo, M., Ditzel, H.J. (2021). Non-covalent Encapsulation of siRNA with Cell-Penetrating Peptides. In: Ditzel, H.J., Tuttolomondo, M., Kauppinen, S. (eds) Design and Delivery of SiRNA Therapeutics. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2282. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1298-9_19
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