In Vitro CRISPR/Cas9 Transfection and Gene-Editing Mediated by Multivalent Cationic Liposome–DNA Complexes

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated nuclease 9 (Cas9) gene-editing offers exciting new therapeutic possibilities for disease treatment with a genetic etiology such as cancer, cardiovascular, neuronal, and immune disorders. However, its clinical translation is being hampered by the lack of safe, versatile, and effective nonviral delivery systems. Herein we report on the preparation and application of two cationic liposome–DNA systems (i.e., lipoplexes) for CRISPR/Cas9 gene delivery. For that purpose, two types of cationic lipids are used (DOTAP, monovalent, and MVL5, multivalent with +5e nominal charge), along with three types of helper lipids (DOPC, DOPE, and monoolein (GMO)). We demonstrated that plasmids encoding Cas9 and single-guide RNA (sgRNA), which are typically hard to transfect due to their large size (>9 kb), can be successfully transfected into HEK 293T cells via MVL5-based lipoplexes. In contrast, DOTAP-based lipoplexes resulted in very low transfection rates. MVL5-based lipoplexes presented the ability to escape from lysosomes, which may explain the superior transfection efficiency. Regarding gene editing, MVL5-based lipoplexes achieved promising GFP knockout levels, reaching rates of knockout superior to 35% for charge ratios (+/−) of 10. Despite the knockout efficiency being comparable to that of Lipofectamine 3000(®) commercial reagent, the non-specific gene knockout is more pronounced in MVL5-based formulations, probably resulting from the considerable cytotoxicity of these formulations. Altogether, these results show that multivalent lipid-based lipoplexes are promising CRISPR/Cas9 plasmid delivery vehicles, which by further optimization and functionalization may become suitable in vivo delivery systems.