Multifunctional nanoparticles of Fe3O4@SiO2(FITC)/PAH conjugated the recombinant plasmid of pIRSE2-EGFP/VEGF165 with dual functions for gene delivery and cellular imaging

Objectives: Technologies to increase tissue vascularity are critically important to the fields of tissue engineering and cardiovascular medicine. Angiogenic factors, like VEGF, have been widely investigated to induce vascular endothelial cell proliferation and angiogenesis for establishing a vascular network. However, effective transport of VEGF gene to target cells with minimal side effects remains a challenge despite the use of unique viral and non-viral delivery approaches. Methods: This study presents a novel gene delivery system of fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) doped and poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) grafted Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticles, which allows efficient loading of pVEGF to form Fe3O4@SiO2(FITC)/PAH/pVEGF nanocomplexes for VEGF gene delivery and cellular imaging. Results: The nanocomplexes maintain their superparamagnetic property in the silica composites at room temperature, reaching a saturation magnetization value of 5.19 emu/g of material, and no appreciable change in magnetism even ...