Citation/Abstract

There has been a rapidly growing area of research in the design and synthesis of molecules that self-organize in water to form functional nanosystems and due to the high interest in the area metal ligand complexes were tested as drug delivery systems with a Leishmania vaccine. Herein, we present the design, synthesis and functional activity of Cu(II) and Zn(II) complexes that self-assemble in water to form spherical nanoscale structures that exhibit an affinity to bind DNA and deliver it into eukaryotic cells with a high percent efficiency in-vitro . In order to assess the effectiveness of these nanoparticles to deliver DNA vaccines in-vivo , we investigated the ability of the Cu(II) and Zn(II) complexes to bind and deliver a gene vaccine against Leishmania mexicana challenged with Leishmania major , into mice models. Comparison of the efficacy of these molecules will be discussed in regards to preventing murine leishmaniasis infection.