Abstract
The potential of novel amphiphilic water soluble and degradable poly(e-caprolactone)-g-poly(L-lysine) as carriers for DNA transfection has been investigated. Two graft copolymers having the same proportion of lysine units but different structures have been synthesized following two grafting techniques. The chemical composition of these copolymers, their expected architectures and their behaviours in aqueous solutions have been studied. The benefits resulting from the use of these degradable polycationic structures as well as their ability to form polyplexes are discussed. Finally, preliminary transfection assays of MCF-7 cells by pRL-TK plasmid using poly(e-caprolactone)-g-poly(L-lysine) copolymers as carriers are reported.