Study on development of polymeric micellar gene carrier and evaluation of its functionality

Abstract

Polymeric micelles, which are formed by the self-assembly of block copolymers, can load various substances and have received attention as drug carriers. Negatively charged nucleic acids such as DNA or RNA are some of the drugs delivered by polyion complex-based polymeric micelles (polyplex micelles). Polyplex micelles are expected to be nonviral gene carriers instead of viral vectors, which have several problems including safety, the limited size of the loading gene, and productivity. In this review, recent studies by our group on smart polyplex micelles delivering genes will be introduced. © 2013 The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan.