Antisense Therapy in Clinical Oncology

摘要

Nucleic acid molecules have emerged as versatile tools with promising utility as therapeutics for human diseases.The specificity of hybridization of an antisense oligonucleotide (AS ODN) to the target mRNA makes the AS strategy attractive to selectively modulate the expression of genes involved in the pathogen-esis of malignant or non-malignant diseases.One AS drug has been approved for local therapy of cytomega-lovirus retinitis,and a number of AS ODN are currently tested in clinical trials including ODN that target bcl-2,survivin,and DNA methyltransferase.The clinical studies indicate that AS ODN are well tolerated and may have therapeutic activity.In this overview,we summarize therapeutic concepts,clinical studies,and new promising molecular targets to treat human cancer with AS ODN.