RNA Biomarkers and Drugs
A special issue of Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247). This special issue belongs to the section "Biopharmaceuticals".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 July 2023) | Viewed by 1365
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The RNA-based genomic biomarkers (e.g., gene (mRNA), non-coding RNA (ncRNA)), have been advancing our knowledge about the pathogenesis of individual diseases, such as cancers, neurological disorders, mental illnesses, and others. Since most human diseases are heterogenous and involve a large set of altered RNAs (e.g., mRNAs, ncRNAs) varying case by case, it is undoable to fully utilize genomic signatures for patient-tailored therapeutics, because most FDA-approved drugs (including small molecules, and RNA drugs, such as antisense oligonucleotides (ASO), small interfering RNAs (siRNA)) were developed on the basis of “one to one ligand-receptor theory”, which focuses on small molecules, with each molecule targeting a single protein or RNA. It appears that the high-throughput genomic data outgrow the “receptor theory”—the basic framework of drug development for more than a century.
By contrast, microRNA (miRNA, one of the most widely studied ncRNA) provides a new “one to hundreds drug-target” binding style, that is, a single miRNA can bind to and decrease hundreds of target genes, producing more robust efficacy than inhibiting a single gene. However, chemically modified miRNA drug development is still in its infancy, although dozens of miRNA drugs have entered clinical trials over the past decade.
Aside from RNA biomarkers and FDA-approved or ongoing trial RNA drugs (e.g., ASO, siRNA, miRNA), topics of other ncRNAs (e.g., long no-coding (lncRNA), circular RNAs (circRNAs), piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs)), guide RNAs (gRNA), RNA drug synthesis, RNA drug formulation and in vivo delivery, RNA drug side effects, and RNA-targeting small molecules are all suitable for this Special Issue.
Dr. Da Zhi Liu
Guest Editor
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