Unilateral Administration of Surface-Modified G1 and G4 PAMAM Dendrimers in Healthy Mice to Assess Dendrimer Migration in the Brain

Polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers are nanoparticles that have a wide scope in the field of biomedicine. Previous evidence shows that the generation 4 (G4) dendrimers with a 100% amine surface (G4-NH2) are highly toxic to cells in vitro and in vivo due to their positively charged amine groups. To reduce the toxicity, we modified the surface of the dendrimers to have more neutral functional groups, with 10% of the surface covered with −NH2 and 90% of the surface covered with hydroxyl groups (−OH; G4–90/10). Our previous in vitro data show that these modified dendrimers are taken up by cells, neurons, and different types of stem cells in vitro and neurons and glial cells in vivo. The toxicity assay shows that these modified dendrimers are less toxic compared with G4-NH2 dendrimers. Moreover, prolonged dendrimer exposure (G1–90/10 and G4–90/10), up to 3 weeks following unilateral intrastriatal injections into the striatum of mice, showed that dendrimers have the tendency to migrate within the brain via corpus callosum at different rates depending on their size. We also found that there is a difference in migration between the G1 and G4 dendrimers based on their size differences. The G4 dendrimers migrate in the anterior and posterior directions as well as more laterally from the site of injection in the striatum compared to the G1 dendrimers. Moreover, the G4 dendrimers have unique projections from the site of injection to the cortical areas.