Chitosan urocanic acid-modified

The receptor ligand transferrin has been incorporated into chitosan/DNA polyplexes which enhanced gene transfer up to four-fold compared to immod-ified chitosan [67]. In a similar fashion, incorporation of C-terminal domain of adenovirus fiber knob protein enhanced transfection up to 130-fold in HeLa cells. Further modifications include the incorporation of hydrophobic moieties to generate dodecylated chitosan, deoxychoHc acid modified chitosan. Urocanic acid-modified chitosan [68] was reported to mediate efficient gene delivery it was hypothesized that the imidazole ring plays a crucial role for enhancing the release of internalized polyplexes from endosomal vesicles. 

The urocanic-acid-modified chitosan showed good DNA binding abihty, high protection of DNA from nuclease attack, and low cytotoxicity. The transfection efficiency of chitosan into 293T cells was much enhanced after coup-Hng with urocanic acid [96]. 

Kim TH, Him JE, Choi YJ et al (2003) Efficient gene delivery by urocanic acid-modified chitosan. J Control Release 93(3) 389-402... 

Jin H, Kim T, Hwang S et al (2006) Aerosol delivery of urocanic acid-modified chitosan/ programmed cell death 4 complex regulated apoptosis, cell cycle, and angiogenesis in lungs of K-ras null mice. Mol Cancer Ther 5(4) 1041... 

Jin H, Xu CX, Kim HW et al (2008) Urocanic acid-modified chitosan-mediated PTEN delivery via aerosol suppressed lung tumorigenesis in K-rasLAl mice. Cancer Gene Ther... 

In another study, Kim et al. [70] synthesized urocanic acid modified chitosan (UAC) to enhance the transfection efficiency. They prepared UAC by... 

Wang, W., Yao, J., Zhou J. P. et al. 2008a. Urocanic acid-modified chitosan-mediated p53 gene delivery inducing apoptosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line HepG2 is involved in its antitumor effect in vitro and in vivo. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 377 567-572. 

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