D-RECS (3) development of functional polymers for inflammatory cells specific gene delivery system

Recently, we have developed and proposed a new system of the intracellular signal-responsive gene regulation as cell specific gene delivery, and termed the new concept D-RECS. In the present study, we focused IκB kinase that regulates NF-κB activation. According to D-RECS strategy, acrylamide polymers containing a substrate peptide for IκB kinase were designed and synthesized. The synthetic polymers were first examined in the gel retardation assay for IκB kinase β (IKKβ) using recombinant IKKβ. A polymer showed the efficient binding activity for plasmid DNA and significant responses to IKKβ. When the polymer-reporter plasmid DNA complex was transfected into living cells, and then the reporter activity was measured under the condition with or without TNFα stimulation, the gene expression with TNFα was stronger than that without TNFα stimulation. The differences in the reporter activity were found to be well-correlated to the TNFα stimulation.