A lipid coated calcium phosphate (LCP) nanoparticle (NP) formulation was developed for efficient delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) to a xenograft tumor model by intravenous administration. Based on the previous formulation, liposome-polycation-DNA (LPD), which was a DNA-protamine complex wrapped by cationic liposome followed by post-insertion of PEG, LCP was similar to LPD NP except that the core was replaced by a biodegradable nano-sized calcium phosphate precipitate prepared by using water-in-oil micro-emulsions in which siRNA was entrapped. We hypothesized that after entering the cells, LCP would de-assemble at low pH in the endosome, which would cause endosome swelling and bursting to release the entrapped siRNA. Such a mechanism was demonstrated by the increase of intracellular Ca(2+) concentration as shown by using a calcium specific dye Fura-2. The LCP NP was further modified by post-insertion of polyethylene glycol (PEG) with or without anisamide, a sigma-1 receptor ligand for systemic administration. Luciferase siRNA was used to evaluate the gene silencing effect in H-460 cells which were stably transduced with a luciferase gene. The anisamide modified LCP NP silenced about 70% and 50% of luciferase activity for the tumor cells in culture and those grown in a xenograft model, respectively. The untargeted NP showed a very low silencing effect. The new formulation improved the in vitro silencing effect 3-4 folds compared to the previous LPD formulation, but had a negligible immunotoxicity.
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