Together is Better: mRNA Co-Encapsulation in Lipoplexes is Required to Obtain Ratiometric Co-Delivery and Protein Expression on the Single Cell Level

Zhang, Heyang; Bussmann, Jeroen; Huhnke, Florian H.; Devoldere, Joke; Minnaert, An-Katrien; Jiskoot, Wim; Serwane, Friedhelm; Spatz, Joachim; Roding, Magnus; De Smedt, Stefaan C.; Braeckmans, Kevin und Remaut, Katrien (2021): Together is Better: mRNA Co-Encapsulation in Lipoplexes is Required to Obtain Ratiometric Co-Delivery and Protein Expression on the Single Cell Level. In: Advanced Science, Vol. 9, No. 4, 2102072

Abstract

Liposomes can efficiently deliver messenger RNA (mRNA) into cells. When mRNA cocktails encoding different proteins are needed, a considerable challenge is to efficiently deliver all mRNAs into the cytosol of each individual cell. In this work, two methods are explored to co-deliver varying ratiometric doses of mRNA encoding red (R) or green (G) fluorescent proteins and it is found that packaging mRNAs into the same lipoplexes (mingle-lipoplexes) is crucial to efficiently deliver multiple mRNA types into the cytosol of individual cells according to the pre-defined ratio. A mixture of lipoplexes containing only one mRNA type (single-lipoplexes), however, seem to follow the first come - first serve principle, resulting in a large variation of R/G uptake and expression levels for individual cells leading to ratiometric dosing only on the population level, but rarely on the single-cell level. These experimental observations are quantitatively explained by a theoretical framework based on the stochasticity of mRNA uptake in cells and endosomal escape of mingle- and single-lipoplexes, respectively. Furthermore, the findings are confirmed in 3D retinal organoids and zebrafish embryos, where mingle-lipoplexes outperformed single-lipoplexes to reliably bring both mRNA types into single cells. This benefits applications that require a strict control of protein expression in individual cells.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics; Medicine > Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy)
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• Language: English
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 390857198