Enhancing Chemotherapy by RNA Interference

Abstract

<jats:p> Small interfering RNA (siRNA) has shown tremendous potential for treating human diseases in the past decades. siRNA can selectively silence a pathological pathway through the targeting and degradation of a specific mRNA, significantly reducing the off-target side effects of anticancer drugs. However, the poor pharmacokinetics of RNA significantly restricted the clinical use of RNAi technology. In this review, we examine in-depth the siRNA therapeutics currently in preclinical and clinical trials, multiple challenges faced in siRNA therapy, feasibility of siRNA treatment with anticancer drugs in combined with siRNA in nanoparticles or modified to be parental drugs, sequential therapy of siRNA treatment prior to drug treatment with siRNA and drugs loaded in nanoparticles. We focused on the combinatorial activation of apoptosis by different pathways, namely Bcl-2, survivin, and Pgp protein. Taken together, this review would serve to establish the pathway of effective and efficient combination therapy of siRNA and drugs as a new strategy. </jats:p>

Mechanosensitive channel Piezo1 induces cell apoptosis in pancreatic cancer by ultrasound with microbubbles

“…Thirdly, no chemotherapeutic drug or targeted drug was used in our study. Several studies proposed that the combination of US with MBs and siRNA or chemotherapeutic drugs is synergistic in treating cancers and reduces the side effect of chemotherapeutic drugs ( Cao et al., 2020 ). Lastly, because Piezo1 was also expressed in pancreatic stellate cells, an orthotopic model or genetically engineered mouse model of PDAC could be considered in the future work.…”

The Application of Inorganic Nanoparticles in Molecular Targeted Cancer Therapy: EGFR Targeting

“…More interestingly, EGFR-targeted MNs also could deliver small interfering RNA (siRNA) to directly silence the gene expression with complementary messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence, particularly the reversal of drug resistance ( Chen et al, 2018 ; Cao et al, 2020 ; Tieu et al, 2021 ). The inhibition ratio was up to 74 ± 6% when incubated with EGFR-pSiNPs through the dual treatments of chemotherapy and genetic therapy.…”

TME-Responsive Multistage Nanoplatform for siRNA Delivery and Effective Cancer Therapy

“…For these reasons, a “multi-stage delivery approach” is necessary for the development of an effective siRNA delivery system, which guarantees the systemic delivery of siRNA. 47 Herein, we summarized the examples which fulfilled all three stages of the multistage siRNA delivery system ( Table 2 ).…”