Lipofectamine-2000 Assisted Magnetofection to Fibroblast Cells Using Polyethyleneimine-Fe3O4@SiO2 Nanoparticles

Abstract

We successfully synthesized Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticles with ultrathin silica layer of 1.0 +/- 0.5 nm that polyethyleneimine (PEI) with low molecular weight of 2.0-4.0 kDa was covalently conjugated with the resulting Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticles by silane coupling reaction. The PEI-Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticles were further used as gene delivery vector for a human fibroblast cell (IMR-90) line. Gene transfection efficiency of the PEI-Fe3O4@SiO2 complexes did not increase remarkably after magnetofection; however, the addition of Lipofectamine 2000 significantly increased the transfection efficiency of the PEI-Fe3O4@SiO2 complexes. We believe that the present approach could be utilized for magnetofection as alternative to Fe3O4 nanoparticles conjugated with the PEI of high molecular weight thanks to its relatively low cytotoxicity and high transfection efficiency.