Aptamer Therapeutics in Cancers: New Advances and Future Trends
A special issue of Biomolecules (ISSN 2218-273X). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Medicine".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 1502
Special Issue Editors
Interests: aptamers; targeted delivery; targeted therapy; non-coding RNAs; cancer
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Nucleic acid aptamers represent a revolutionary and winning approach in the field of precision anticancer medicine. Based on their unique three-dimensional shapes, aptamers recognize specific target molecules with high affinity, acting as selective inhibitory agents and/or carriers for targeted delivery. Therefore, aptamers allow the specific recognition of diseased tissues, strongly reducing the occurrence of undesirable off-target effects.
Due to their mode of action, they are called "chemical antibodies", but, thanks to their chemical nature, they exhibit many advantageous features over antibodies, including fast and easy production, high batch fidelity, high tissue penetration, low costs, easy chemical modification, low toxicity and immunogenicity.
To Date, many reports describe the application of aptamers or aptamer-based conjugates as anticancer drugs, also proposing multimodal approaches to improve therapeutic efficacy. Furthermore, several aptamer-based approaches have shown promise in clinical trials.
This Special Issue aims to summarize recent advances in aptamer-based technology and application in major cancer types, discussing advantages, limitations and possible improvements to optimize aptamer development in the near future.
We are pleased to invite you to participate in this Special Issue in Biomolecules by submitting an original or a review article relevant to the field.
I am looking forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Silvia Catuogno
Dr. Silvia Nuzzo
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomolecules is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- aptamers
- cancer
- targeted therapy
- aptamer-based conjugates
- aptamer-conjugated nanoparticles
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Aptamer-guided gene therapy for cancer disease
Authors: Silvia Catuogno
Affiliation: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Endocrinologia ed Oncologia Sperimentale, Roma, Italy
Abstract: Gene therapy is a strategy capable of correcting genetic alterations in pathological conditions, and can provide successful approaches for the treatment of several human diseases, including cancer. Different methods have been proposed for cancer gene therapy, mainly aimed at inhibiting oncogenes or restoring the function of tumour suppressor genes. These include the use of small interfering RNAs, microRNAs, anti-microRNAs, CRISPR/Cas9 systems and epigenetic modifiers. Despite its great potential, the success of gene therapy for cancer treatment is closely related to the development of safe and effective delivery systems for tumor targeting. To this purpose, nucleic acid aptamers represent ideal tools. Aptamers are short single-stranded oligonucleotides able to bind almost any target of interest, often undergoing cell-specific internalization. So far, many examples of aptamer-nucleic acid conjugates for cancer gene-therapy have been described. In addition, their use as targeting moiety to decor vector systems has been widely reported.
Here we summarize the state-of-the-art of aptamer applications for cancer gene therapy, providing key examples, and discussing their advantages and limitations.
