Poly(ethylene glycol) Crowding as Critical Factor To Determine pDNA Packaging Scheme into Polyplex Micelles for Enhanced Gene Expression

A critical role of polyethylene glycol (PEG) crowding in the packaging of plasmid DNA (pDNA) into polyplex micelles (PMs) was investigated using a series of PEG-b-poly(L-lysine) (PEG-PLys) block copolymers with varying molecular weights of both PEG and PLys segments. Rod-shaped PMs preferentially formed when the tethered PEG chains covering pDNA in a precondensed state were dense enough to overlap one another (reduced tethering density (RTD) > 1), whereas globular PMs were obtained when they were not overlapped (RTD < 1). These results submitted a scheme that steric repulsive effect of PEG regulated packaging pathways of pDNA either through folding into rod-shape or collapsing into globular depending on whether the PEG chains are overlapped or not. The rod-shaped PMs gave significantly higher gene expression efficacies in a cell-free system compared to the globular PMs, demonstrating the practical relevance of regulating packaging structure of pDNA for developing efficient gene delivery systems.