A facile Friedel–Crafts acylation for the synthesis of polyethylenimine-grafted multi-walled carbon nanotubes as efficient gene delivery vectors

Low chemical reactivity of carbon nanotubes is one of the major obstacles in their functionalization via chemical reactions. As a non-destructive method, Friedel-Crafts acylation was suggested among the explored reactions for which only a few methods have been reported under harsh reaction conditions, e.g., high temperature all leading to low yields. In this study, we propose a novel method for the acylation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) at a low temperature (i.e., 42 °C), using SiO2-Al2O3 as a catalyst and 6-bromohexanoic acid as the acylating agent to produce high yield functionalized MWCNTs. After acylation, MWCNTs are conjugated with polyethylenimines (PEIs) with three molecular weights (1.8, 10 and 25 kDa). Three different MWCNT-PEI conjugates are synthesized and evaluated for their condensation ability, viability, size and zeta potential properties. The transfection efficiency of the functionalized MWCNTs is evaluated using luciferase assay and flow cytometry in a Neuroblastoma cell line. MWCNT-PEI (10 kDa) conjugate shows the highest transfection efficacy compared to others. For this carrier transfection efficacy exceeds the amount of PEI 25 kDa at similar carrier to plasmid weight ratio (C/P) and is around 3 times higher compared to PEI 25 kDa at C/P = 0.8 as positive control regarding its high transfection efficiency and low cytotoxicity.