The effect of SPION size and salting-out on transduction of PEGylated lentiviral vector

Gene editing has many promising applications for the treatment of diseases with unmet clinical needs, including cancers and autoimmune. There are two main routes for gene delivery: viral and non-viral. Recent research shows viral methods are emerging in clinical trials. Nevertheless, there are still a couple of technological obstacles that require further improvements, these include virus concentration and low efficiency of transduction. This research aimed to employ superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION) to solve these problems. Three sizes of 10, 40, and 120 nm SPION were synthesized by co-precipitation and Sol-Gel methods, and characterized by XRD, FTIR, FESEM, and VSM. Conjugating SPION to viruses by polyethylene glycol (PEG) can increase the sedimentation of viruses due to magnetic and gravity forces even without ultracentrifuge. Moreover, this magnetic force can guide viruses toward cells and tremendously facilitate the transduction process. As shown, average size SPION (40 nm) revealed the best performance, especially in combination with salting-out precipitation and increased transduction efficiency of more than 20-fold. SPION size has significant effects and should be considered for this application. The combination of the salting-out method and SPION has a synergic effect and elevates transduction results tremendously.