Objective: To investigate the efficiency of polyamidoamine dendrimer grafted carbon nanotube (dendrimer-CNT) mediated entrance of anti-survivin oligonucleotide into MCF-7 cells, and its effects on the growth of MCF-7 cells. Methods: Antisense survivin oligonucleotide was anchored onto polyamidoamine dendrimer grafted carbon nanotubes to form dendrimer-CNT-asODN complex and the complex was characterized by Zeta potential, AFM, TEM, and 1% agarose gel electrophoresis analysis. Dendrimer-CNT-asODN complexes were added into the medium and incubated with MCF-7 cells. MTT method was used to detect the effects of asODN and dendrimer-CNT-asODN on the growth of MCF-7 cells. TEM was used to observe the distribution of dendrimer-CNT-asODN complex within MCF-7 cells. Results: Successful synthesis of dendrimer-CNT-asODN complexes was proved by TEM, AFM and agarose gel electrophoresis. TEM showed that the complexes were located in the cytoplasm, endosome, and lysosome within MCF-7 cells. When dendrimer-CNT-asODN (1.0 μmol/L) and asODN (1.0 μmol/L) were used for 120 h incubation, the inhibitory rates of MCF-7 cells were (28.22±3.5)% for dendrimer-CNT-asODN complex group, (9.23±0.56)% for only asODN group, and (3.44±0.25)% for dendrimer-CNT group. Dendrimer-CNT-asODN complex at 3.0 μmol/L inhibited MCF-7 cells by (30.30±10.62)%, and the inhibitory effects were in a time- and concentration- dependent manner. Conclusion: Dendrimer-CNT nanoparticles may serve as a gene delivery vector with high efficiency, which can bring foreign gene into cancer cells, inhibiting cancer cell proliferation and markedly enhancing the cancer therapy effects.
