Suicide nanoplasmids coding for ribosome-inactivating proteins

Conventional eukaryotic expression plasmids contain a DNA backbone that is dispensable for the cellular expression of the transgene. In order to reduce the vector size, minicircle DNA technology was introduced. A drawback of the minicircle technology are considerable production costs. Nanoplasmids are a relatively new class of mini-DNA constructs that are of tremendous potential for pharmaceutical applications. In this study we have designed novel suicide nanoplasmid constructs coding for plant derived ribosome-inactivating proteins. The suicide-nanoplasmids were formulated with a targeted K(16)-lysine domain, analyzed for size, and characterized by electron microscopy. The anti-proliferative activity of the suicide-nanoplasmids was investigated in vitro by real time microscopy and the expression kinetic was determined using an enhanced green fluorescent protein nanoplasmid variant. In an aggressive in vivo neuroblastoma tumor model, treated mice showed a reduced tumor growth whereby the therapy was well tolerated.