OBJECTIVE To evaluate the therapeutic efficacy and safety of percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI) alone and combined with radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) in high risk locations. MATERIALS AND METHODS We performed PEI for HCCs in RFA-high risk locations, either alone or in combination with RFA. There were 20 HCCs (1.7 ± 0.9 cm) in 20 patients (PEI group: n = ...

We report on a polyethylenimine (PEI) covalently conjugated (α-NaYbF4:Tm)/CaF2 upconversion nanoparticle (PEI-UCNP) and its use for labeling rat mesenchymal stem cells (rMSCs). The PEI-UCNPs absorb and emit near-infrared light, allowing for improved in vivo imaging depth over conventional probes. We found that such covalent surface conjugation by PEI results in a much more stable PEI-UCNP suspe...

Chitosan-graft-polyethylenimine (CHI-g-PEI) copolymer has been used for the improvement of low transfection efficiency of chitosan. The present study aims to test the pulmonary toxicity and efficiency of CHI-g-PEI as an aerosol gene carrier. Mice were exposed to aerosol containing green-fluorescent protein (GFP)-polyethylenimine (PEI) or GFP-CHI-g-PEI complexes for 30 min during the development...

A biotinylated photocleavable polyethylenimine (B-PC-PEI) was designed and synthesized for the capture and controlled release of nucleic acids from solid supports. B-PC-PEI was synthesized via a three-step reaction process and verified by 1H NMR and mass spectrometry. In aqueous solution, the o-nitrobenzyl group within B-PC-PEI was efficiently cleaved by 5 min of 365 nm light exposure from a di...

Gene therapy and immunotherapy are powerful techniques in the treatment of many life threatening diseases. The major challenge in these therapies is to seek a safe and efficient delivery carrier for gene and antigen materials. Carriers are designed to protect these molecules from degradation, improve their stability and facilitate the delivery of them to the site of action. This research study ...

Background Small interfering RNA (siRNA) as a new therapeutic modality holds promise for cancer treatment. However, the traditional viral carriers are prone to immunogenicity and risk of insertional mutagenesis. Methods In order to provide a tumor-targeted delivery carrier of siRNA in cancer therapy, the hyaluronic acid (HA)-selenium (Se)-polyethylenimine (PEI) nanoparticle (NP) was fabricate...

Objective Polyethylenimine (PEI), a readily available synthetic polycation which has high transfection efficiency owing to its buffering capacity was introduced for transfection a few years ago. But it has been reported that PEI is cytotoxic in many cell lines. In this study, in order to enhance the transfection efficiency of 10 kDa PEI and reduce its toxicity, hydrophobic residues were grafte...

Polyethylenimine (PEI) is considered to be a promising non-viral gene delivery vector. To solve the toxicity versus efficacy and tumor-targeting challenges of PEI used as gene delivery vector, we constructed a novel non-viral vector DR5-TAT-modified Pluronic-PEI (Pluronic-PEI-DR5-TAT), which was based on the attachment of low-molecular-weight polyethylenimine (LMW-PEI) to the amphiphilic polyme...

The high transfection efficiency of polyethylenimine (PEI) makes it an attractive potential nonviral genetic vector for gene delivery and therapy. However, the highly positive charge of PEI leads to cytotoxicity and limits its application. To reduce the cytotoxicity of PEI, we prepared anion-enriched nanoparticles that combined PEI with tripolyphosphate (TPP). We then characterized the PEI-TPP ...

Intravenously injected plasmid DNA (pDNA) complexed with cationic liposome (lipoplexes) caused NF-kappaB-mediated cytokine production from macrophages, induced by CpG sequence in the pDNA. We have reported that cytokine production caused by linear polyethyleneimine (PEI)-pDNA complexes (PEI polyplexes) was much lower than that caused by lipoplexes (Kawakami, S., Ito, Y., Charoensit, P., Yamashi...