hyaluronic acid reagent functional chitosan-pei conjugate with aqp2-sirna suppressed endometriotic lesion formation

Meng-Dan Zhao,1 Jin-Lin Cheng,2 Jing-Jing Yan,1 Feng-Ying Chen,1 Jian-Zhong Sheng,3 Dong-Li Sun,1 Jian Chen,4 Jing Miao,4 Run-Ju Zhang,1 Cai-Hong Zheng,1 He-Feng Huang1,5 1Women’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 2State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, 3Department of Pathophysiology, School of Medicine, 4The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 5International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Abstract: To identify a new drug candidate for treating endometriosis which has fewer side effects, a new polymeric nanoparticle gene delivery system consisting of polyethylenimine-grafted chitosan oligosaccharide (CSO-PEI) with hyaluronic acid (HA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) was designed. There was no obvious difference in sizes observed between (CSO-PEI/siRNA)HA and CSO-PEI/siRNA, but the fluorescence accumulation in the endometriotic lesion was more significant for (CSO-PEI/siRNA)HA compared with CSO-PEI/siRNA due to the specific binding of HA to CD44. In addition, the (CSO-PEI/siRNA)HA nanoparticle gene therapy significantly decreased the endometriotic lesion sizes with atrophy and degeneration of the ectopic endometrium. The epithelial cells of ectopic endometrium from rat models of endometriosis showed a significantly lower CD44 expression than control after treatment with (CSO-PEI/siRNA)HA. Furthermore, observation under an electron microscope showed no obvious toxic effect on the reproductive organs. Therefore, (CSO-PEI/siRNA)HA gene delivery system can be used as an effective method for the treatment of endometriosis. Keywords: chitosan-PEI, hyaluronic acid, AQP2-siRNA, endometriosis, targeted therapy