Uptake signalling of PepFect 14

Sammanfattning: Cell-penetrating peptides are able to bind and carry various therapeutic agents including oligonucleotides into cells for a therapeutic effect. The aim of the cell-penetrating peptide research field is to produce a simple, safe and potent delivery platform for intracellular therapy and more especially for gene therapy. More than twenty five years after their discovery, numerous sequences of cell penetrating peptides have been designed based on natural substances, chimeric strategy or entirely synthetic products. The precise interactions leading to the uptake of cell-penetrating peptides is as of today still not entirely clear. Global mechanisms of direct penetration and endocytosis are proposed, but little is known about actual molecular interactions building the signalling pathway of cell-penetrating peptides.In this thesis, with the help of the cell-penetrating peptide PepFect 14, we study the signalling of the uptake of cell-penetrating peptides either by transcriptome analysis or ligand interfering. We demonstrate the involvement of autophagy in the uptake of both PepFect 14 and the complex formed by PepFect 14 and oligonucleotides. We also present the use of a high throughput assay aimed at identifying new signalling pathways affected by the delivery of oligonucleotides using PepFect 14.