Intrinsic Structure of Lipoplexes Embedded in Polyelectrolyte Multilayers

The functionalization of surfaces with therapeutically applicable nucleic acid carriers provides promising strategies in biomedical research to develop therapies that focus on local nucleic acid delivery. One such approach is the embedding of lipoplexes (LPXs) in polysaccharide-based polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMs). PEMs based on hyaluronic acid and chitosan lead to efficient embedding of customized LPX connected with good biological activity. However, although quantitative evaluation demonstrates LPX embedding, information about detailed characteristics of embedded LPXs has been missing. In this study, we used synchrotron-based grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering to investigate the effects of the change in the chemical environment caused by the embedding into PEMs on the LPX’s internal mesoscopic structure. While the lamellar character of the LPXs was preserved, the repeat distance was affected by embedding into polysaccharide-based coatings.