Towards water-soluble [60]fullerenes for the delivery of siRNA in a prostate cancer model

This paper presents two water-soluble fullerene nanomaterials (HexakisaminoC(60) and monoglucosamineC(60), which is called here JK39) that were developed and synthesized as non-viral siRNA transfection nanosystems. The developed two-step Bingel–Hirsch reaction enables the chemical modification of the fullerene scaffold with the desired bioactive fragments such as d-glucosamine while keeping the crucial positive charged ethylenediamine based malonate. The ESI–MS and (13)C-NMR analyses of JK39 confirmed its high T(h) symmetry, while X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed the presence of nitrogen and oxygen-containing C–O or C–N bonds. The efficiency of both fullerenes as siRNA vehicles was tested in vitro using the prostate cancer cell line DU145 expressing the GFP protein. The HexakisaminoC(60) fullerene was an efficient siRNA transfection agent, and decreased the GFP fluorescence signal significantly in the DU145 cells. Surprisingly, the glycofullerene JK39 was inactive in the transfection experiments, probably due to its high zeta potential and the formation of an extremely stable complex with siRNA.