Cationic solid lipid nanoparticles loaded by cystein proteinase genes as a novel anti-leishmaniasis DNA vaccine delivery system:Characterization and in vitro evaluations.
Abstract
Abstract summary During last decades, vaccine delivery has made considerable progress although this field is still confronted with several challenges, mainly concerning antigen immunogenicity, delivery and stability. The aim of this study was to evaluate efficiency and toxicity of a cocktail candidate vaccine against Leishmania formulated into solid lipid nanoparticles. Our results showed that SLN-pDNA has the capacity to drive cystein proteinase gene expressions while covering the most concerned criteria for pDNA delivery carriers that is cytotoxicity. Introduction Leishmaniasis is a major health problem in many tropical and subtropical countries and the development of a safe and easily-available vaccine has high priority. Although several antigens potentially capable of inducing protective immunity have been studied, in the absence of pharmaceutical industry interest they have remained as fine publications only. Amongst them, Cathepsin L-like cysteine proteinases (CPs) have received considerable attention and types I and II CPs have been used in a heterologous prime-boost vaccination regime for experimental visceral leishmaniasis in mice and dogs [1,2]. Due to the promising results of the mentioned vaccination regime, we aimed to evaluate cationic solid lipid nanoparticles (cSLNs) for in vitro delivery of cpa, cpb intended to be used as a cocktail DNAvaccine in our forthcoming studies. Thus cSLNs-pDNA formulations harboring cystein proteinase genes were prepared and characterized according to their size, zeta potential and nuclease protection. In vitro transfection efficiency and cell viability were also evaluated and compared to linear PEI 25 kD, the most powerful non-viral gene delivery carrier.