Elsevier

Journal of Controlled Release

Volume 350, October 2022, Pages 80-92
Journal of Controlled Release

Nucleic acid-based therapy for brain cancer: Challenges and strategies

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2022.08.014Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

Nucleic acid-based therapy emerges as a powerful weapon for the treatment of tumors thanks to its direct, effective, and lasting therapeutic effect. Encouragingly, continuous nucleic acid-based drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Despite the tremendous progress, there are few nucleic acid-based drugs for brain tumors in clinic. The most challenging problems lie on the instability of nucleic acids, difficulty in traversing the biological barriers, and the off-target effect. Herein, nucleic acid-based therapy for brain tumor is summarized considering three aspects: (i) the therapeutic nucleic acids and their applications in clinical trials; (ii) the various administration routes for nucleic acid delivery and the respective advantages and drawbacks. (iii) the strategies and carriers for improving stability and targeting ability of nucleic acid drugs. This review provides thorough knowledge for the rational design of nucleic acid-based drugs against brain tumor.

Keywords

Nucleic acid-based therapy
Brain tumor
Blood brain barrier
Drug delivery
Carriers

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1

These authors contributed equally.