TY - JOUR
T1 - Aptamers in neuro-oncology
T2 - An emerging therapeutic modality
AU - Doherty, Caroline
AU - Wilbanks, Brandon
AU - Khatua, Soumen
AU - Maher, Louis James
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2024/1/1
Y1 - 2024/1/1
N2 - Despite recent advances in the understanding of brain tumor pathophysiology, challenges associated with tumor location and characteristics have prevented significant improvement in neuro-oncology therapies. Aptamers are short, single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that fold into sequence-specific, 3-dimensional shapes that, like protein antibodies, interact with targeted ligands with high affinity and specificity. Aptamer technology has recently been applied to neuro-oncology as a potential approach to innovative therapy. Preclinical research has demonstrated the ability of aptamers to overcome some obstacles that have traditionally rendered neuro-oncology therapies ineffective. Potential aptamer advantages include their small size, ability in some cases to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, inherent lack of immunogenicity, and applicability for discovering novel biomarkers. Herein, we review recent reports of aptamer applications in neuro-oncology including aptamers found by cell- and in vivo-Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment approaches, aptamer-targeted therapeutic delivery modalities, and aptamers in diagnostics and imaging. We further identify crucial future directions for the field that will be important to advance aptamer-based drugs or tools to clinical application in neuro-oncology.
AB - Despite recent advances in the understanding of brain tumor pathophysiology, challenges associated with tumor location and characteristics have prevented significant improvement in neuro-oncology therapies. Aptamers are short, single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that fold into sequence-specific, 3-dimensional shapes that, like protein antibodies, interact with targeted ligands with high affinity and specificity. Aptamer technology has recently been applied to neuro-oncology as a potential approach to innovative therapy. Preclinical research has demonstrated the ability of aptamers to overcome some obstacles that have traditionally rendered neuro-oncology therapies ineffective. Potential aptamer advantages include their small size, ability in some cases to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, inherent lack of immunogenicity, and applicability for discovering novel biomarkers. Herein, we review recent reports of aptamer applications in neuro-oncology including aptamers found by cell- and in vivo-Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment approaches, aptamer-targeted therapeutic delivery modalities, and aptamers in diagnostics and imaging. We further identify crucial future directions for the field that will be important to advance aptamer-based drugs or tools to clinical application in neuro-oncology.
KW - drug delivery | diagnostics | imaging | nucleic acid therapy | targeted therapy
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U2 - 10.1093/neuonc/noad156
DO - 10.1093/neuonc/noad156
M3 - Review article
C2 - 37619244
AN - SCOPUS:85181761184
SN - 1522-8517
VL - 26
SP - 38
EP - 54
JO - Neuro-oncology
JF - Neuro-oncology
IS - 1
ER -