In recent years, increasing interest is being paid to the design of transfectants based on non-toxic and biodegradable
polymers for gene therapy purposes. We recently reported on a novel, biodegradable
polymer,
poly(2-dimethylamino ethylamino)phosphazene (p(DMAEA)-ppz) for use in non-viral gene delivery. In this study, the biodistribution and in vivo transfection efficiency of polyplexes composed of plasmid
DNA and p(DMAEA)-ppz were investigated after
intravenous administration in
tumor bearing mice. Data were compared with those of polyplexes based on the non-biodegradable
polyethylenimine (PEI 22kDa). Both polyplex systems were rapidly cleared from the circulation (<7% ID, at 60 min after administration) and showed considerable disposition in the liver and the lung, all in line with earlier work on cationic polyplex systems. The lung disposition is attributed to aggregates formed by interaction of the polyplexes with blood constituents. Redistribution of the polyplexes from the lung was observed for both polyplex formulations. Importantly, both polyplex systems showed a substantial
tumor accumulation of 5% and 8% ID/g for p(DMAEA)-ppz and PEI22 polyplexes, respectively, at 240 min after administration. The
tumor disposition of the p(DMAEA)-ppz and PEI22 polyplexes was associated with considerable expression levels of the reporter gene. In contrast to PEI22 polyplexes, p(DMAEA)-ppz polyplexes did not display substantial gene expression in the lung or other organs (organ gene expression<1/100 of
tumor gene expression). The observed preferential
tumor gene expression mediated by the p(DMAEA)-ppz polyplexes enables the application of this
polymer to deliver therapeutic genes to
tumors.