Preparing liposomes through frame guided assembly with high-loading functional nucleic acids

Abstract

Recently, a frame guided assembly (FGA) has been demonstrated as a robust tool to prepare liposomes with customized morphologies. However, the potential application of FGA liposomes in delivering nucleic acid drugs is still limited by the low payload. In this study, by systemically investigating the correlation between the leading hydrophobic group (LHG) density and the initial detergent concentration, it has been demonstrated that frames with a low LHG density, which may facilitate the increase of the load of the nucleic acid drug, could be guided to form liposomes at low initial detergent concentrations. By capitalizing on this phenomenon, FGA liposomes with a high loading of ASO/siRNA have been successfully prepared and applied to treat pathogenic genes.