Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) antisense effect to bacterial growth and their application potentiality in biotechnology

Abstract

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are nucleic acid analogs having attractive properties such as quiet stability against nucleases and proteases, and they form strong complexes with complementary strands of DNA or RNA. Because of this attractive nature, PNA is often used in antisense technology to inhibit gene expression and microbial cell growth with high specificity. Many bacterial antisense or antiribosomal studies using PNA oligomers have been reported so far, and parameters to design effective antisense PNAs and to improve PNA cell entry for efficient inhibition of bacterial growth have been presented. However, there are still several obstacles such as low cellular uptake of PNA while applying antisense PNAs to a complex microbial community. On overcoming these problems, the PNA antisense technique might become a very attractive tool not only for controlling the microbial growth but also for further elucidating microbial ecology in complex microbial consortia. Here, we summarize and present recent studies on the development of antimicrobial PNAs targeting mRNAs and rRNAs. In addition, the application potentiality of antisense techniques in nonclinical biotechnology fields is discussed.

Sequence-Specific Peptide Nucleic Acid-Based Antisense Inhibitors of TEM-1 β-Lactamase and Mechanism of Adaptive Resistance

“…PNAs have a modified peptide backbone with nucleic acid functional groups and exhibit no known enzymatic cleavage, leading to increased stability in cells. 35 PNA molecules are known to have higher binding affinity and form more stable interactions with RNA and DNA than natural nucleic acids due to a neutral backbone. 14 TEM-1 β-lactamase has been targeted before with PNA molecules, but the molecules we present here are novel and have not been characterized before.…”

New Generation Antibiotics/Antibacterials: Deadly Arsenal for Disposal of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria

“…Thereafter, antisense inhibition leads to bacteriocidal or bacteriostatic effect or restoration of bacterial susceptibility, which relies on the role of targeted gene. Synthetic antisense oligomers, particularly phosphorodiamidate morpholino (PMO) [24] and peptide nucleic acid (PNA) [25], possess favorable properties in light of antisense antibacterial application. It also includes enhanced biological stability, targeting specificity, binding affinity and access to an array of chemical modifications.…”

Exploration of Using Antisense Peptide Nucleic Acid (PNA)-cell Penetrating Peptide (CPP) as a Novel Bactericide against Fire Blight Pathogen Erwinia amylovora

“…These nucleic acid homologs include peptide nucleic acids (PNAs), phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMOs), and phosphorothioate oligonucleotides (PS-ODNs) (Bai and Luo, 2012). Among them, PNAs have shown promising antimicrobial effects against some animal pathogenic bacterial species (Good and Nielsen, 1998; Nekhotiaeva et al, 2004; Kulyte et al, 2005; Kurupati et al, 2007; Hatamoto et al, 2010). In PNA, the sugar–phosphate backbone of DNA/RNA was replaced with a pseudopeptide backbone, while nearly identical geometry and spacing of the bases was retained (Bai and Luo, 2012).…”