Aptamer-Assisted Delivery of Nucleotides with Tumor-Suppressing Properties for Targeted Cancer Therapies

Abstract

: Targeted cancer therapy is developing rapidly according to the fact that it has been demonstrated that this type of therapy can reduce various side effects and adverse events of the commonly available cancer treatment approaches such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. This selective type of cancer therapy can mediate encouraging outcomes where the frontline cancer treatment methods have failed to do so. Aptamer-assisted delivery of various types of cargoes or the utilization of aptamer for the redirection of delivery vehicles is among various fields of targeted cancer therapy that have gained significant attention lately. Aptamers are single-stranded oligonucleotides or peptide molecules that harbor significant levels of specificity and affinity toward various types of targets such as cell surface antigens, ions, toxins, chemicals, etc. They have shown encouraging results in several types of targeted cancer therapy for the redirection of a variety of cargoes. In this review, we shed the light on the application of aptamers for the delivery of nucleotides such as MicroRNAs (miRNAs), short or small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), and short hairpin RNA or small hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) that harbor tumor suppression properties in various kinds of malignancies.