RNA Nanoparticles Against Cancer

Filed in archive Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics on September 15, 2005

earlier reports use DNA molecules as scaffolding to form buckyballs, which can house and deliver drugs into cells. In two separate papers appearing in Nano Letters and Human Gene Therapy, scientists from Purdue University combined nanotechnology and RNAi to propose a treatment against cancer cells. Thy used three RNA strands, one of which is a small interfering RNA, designed to silence/deactivate that gene which makes cancer cells divide indefinitely. The other two are RNA aptamers, which bind to cancer cell surface markers, and ribozymes, which can be designed to degrade specific RNA in cancer cells or viruses. All together they form a triangular structure 20-40 nanometers wide (Image). Peixuan Guo, who leads the research team said:

"We looked around for RNA strands that would behave in certain ways when they encounter a cancer cell because each of them needs to perform one step of the therapy. An effective agent against cancer needs to accomplish several tasks. It needs first to recognize the cancer cell and gain access to its interior, and then it needs to destroy it. But we'd also like the agent to leave a trail for us, to mark the path the molecule has taken somehow. That way, we can pinpoint the location of the cancer and trace the outcome after the treatment."

The nanoparticles have already proven effective against cancer growth in living mice as well as lab-grown human nasopharyngeal carcinoma and breast cancer cells.

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