Preparation of low toxic fluorescent chitosan-graft-polyethyleneimine copolymer for gene carrier

Fluorescent chitosan-graft-polyethyleneimine (PEI) copolymer was prepared by incorporating PEI molecule onto chitosan backbone through naphthalimide moiety by simple substitution reaction. 4-Bromo-1,8-naphthalic anhydride was used as fluorescent probe due to its strong fluorescence and good photo-stability property and the presence of a fine tunable bromide functional group in the naphthalimide ring, in this work. The copolymer was characterized by FTIR, elemental analysis and XRD. The fluorescence property of the copolymer was determined by UV–vis spectrometer and spectrofluorometer. The effects of pH and temperature on fluorescence property of the copolymer were also studied. The graft copolymer with degree of substitution 37.6 of PEI onto chitosan showed better complexation ability with DNA at comparatively low N/P (nitrogen to phosphate ratio) ratio 1.0 compared to that of chitosan (N/P ratio 2.0). The cytotoxicity of PEI largely decreased after grafting with chitosan and all the copolymers showed above 50% cell viability even at high polymer concentration (300 μg/mL). Therefore, the prepared fluorescent chitosan-graft-PEI copolymer may be used as a biological marker as well as drug or gene carrier with low toxicity.