top of page

Science

Advantages of Partum Technology

Transfection equipment can be sub-segmented into liposomes, electroporation, microinjection, laserfection, and others. Each method has its benefits and drawbacks that must be taken into account when considering an efficient delivery method.

Challenges

In vivo delivery of siRNA is even more challenging and, despiteinitial excitement and investment, it had even started to seeminfeasible.

​

In vivo delivery faces many challenges, including:

  • Immediate degradation (<15 minutes)

  • Uncontrolled distribution

  • Rapid glomerular filtration

  • Uptake by immune system and liver

Approaches

Existing approaches include liposomes, SNALPs, lipoplexes, and polyplexes. These delivery systems are usually unstable, accumulate in non-targeted tissue, and are toxic.

Our Novel Solution

Partum Biopharma is in the process of developing a new delivery solution to currently available transfectionagents in the market. This novel solution will be approached through the use of cyclic peptide andcyclic-hybrid peptides as a newer class of transfecting agent. The main features of this approach are:

​

  • We are developing novel cyclic peptides with dual characteristics that enhance interaction with nucleic acid and the cell membrane at the same time.

  • Our peptides are stable in serum and endosomal-independent internalization, which creates more consistent efficiency in a wide variety of cells.

  • Our peptides are also non-toxic in comparison to currently available commercial transfection agents and delivery systems.

 

In comparison to our direct and indirect competitors in the market, our key competitive advantage liesheavily in our novel delivery solution, which is characterized by being non-toxic with stable serum andefficient delivery in various cell lines. The company has further developed more stable, non-toxic,selective, and efficient transfecting agents compared to commercially available transfecting agents.

​

A number of academic laboratories are using the reagents for their particular purposes, such as the deliveryof siRNA, DNA, CRISPR, and plasmid. More applications of our transfecting agents include the delivery of DNAand plasmid in the in vitro system. The cyclic peptides alone, or in combination with gold nanoparticles,are also used for siRNA delivery in vivo.

Serum Stability of siRNA (24h) with PAB001 and PAB005

siRNA is susceptible to rapid (~15 minutes) degradation in serum and serum containing cell culture

Cytotoxicity of PAB001/siRNA and PAB005/siRNA vs. Lipofectamine/siRNA

Most siRNA delivery systems (including commercially available brands) are toxic to most mammaliancell lines, which negatively impacts the experimental design.

​

Newly developed peptides are non-toxic in the triple-negative breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cell line

Cellular Internalization (Flow Cytometry)

  • Cellular internalization is negligible for free siRNA.

  • Newly designed peptides exhibit comparable efficiency to Lipofectamine

Cellular Internalization (Confocal Microscopy)

Our Technology

Our technology is a highly specific and modular platform designed to inhibit or silence the expression of thedisease-causing genes, allowing cells to revert to their healthy state. We aim to activate this through ournovel cyclic peptide platform for therapeutic siRNA delivery. siRNA discovery was a breakthrough inmolecular biology that was first described in late 1990 and later recognized with a Nobel Prize in 2006.

bottom of page