Abstract
RNA interference (RNAi) is a sequence-specific mechanism for posttranscriptional inhibition of gene expression. As such, it is an attractive approach for the therapeutic treatment of a wide variety of human maladies. Although conceptually elegant, there are key barriers to the widespread clinical application of this process. One of the most formidable impediments to clinical translation of RNAi is safe and effective delivery of the siRNAs to the desired target tissue at therapeutic doses. In this regard, the advent of versatile aptamer technology has prompted the development of aptamer-mediated cell-type-specific delivery for targeted RNAi triggers. In this chapter, we explore the developments of cell-type-specific aptamer applications. We also highlight recent advances of aptamers as functionalized nanocarriers for targeted siRNA delivery.
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Acknowledgments and Author Disclosure Statements
This work is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health AI29329, AI42552, and HL07470 awarded to J.J.R.
J.Z. drafted the article. J.J.R. revised it and gave final approval of the version to be published. All authors read and approved the final article.
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
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Zhou, J., Rossi, J.J. (2013). Aptamer-Mediated siRNA Targeting. In: Howard, K. (eds) RNA Interference from Biology to Therapeutics. Advances in Delivery Science and Technology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4744-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4744-3_10
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