Restani, RitaConde, JoãoBaptista, PedroCidade, Maria Teresa VarandaBragança, AnaMorgado, JorgeCorreia, Ilídio Joaquim SobreiraRicardo, Ana AguiarBonifácio, Vasco2018-03-202018-03-202014-10-07Restani, R.B., Conde, J., Baptista, P.V., Cidade, M.T., Bragança, A.M., Morgado, J., Correia, I.J., Aguiar-Ricardo, A. e Bonifácio, V.D.B. (2014) “Polyurea dendrimer for efficient cytosolic siRNA delivery”, RSC Advances, Vol. 4(97): pp. 54872-54878http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/4663The design of small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery materials showing efficacy in vivo is at the forefront of nanotherapeutics research. Polyurea (PURE-type) dendrimers are ‘smart’ biocompatible 3D polymers that unveil a dynamic and elegant back-folding mechanism involving hydrogen bonding between primary amines at the surface and tertiary amines and ureas at the core. Similarly, to a biological proton pump, they are able to automatically and reversibly transform their conformation in response to pH stimulus. Here, we show that PURE-G4 is a useful gene silencing platform showing no cellular toxicity. As a proof of concept we investigated the PURE-G4-siRNA dendriplex, which was shown to be an attractive platform with high transfection efficacy. The simplicity associated with the complexation of siRNA with polyurea dendrimers makes them a powerful tool for efficient cytosolic siRNA delivery.engSiRNADendrimerPolyureajournal article