Nanoparticles Help Advance Anticancer siRNA Therapy

Human clinical trials have commenced for at least two siRNA (short interfering RNAs) based anticancer therapies, both of which are delivered to tumors in nanoparticles. As a result of the studies, three new reports are detailing the progress that the researchers involved are making in developing nanoparticle enabled siRNA anticancer therapeutics.

Two of these reports are published in the Journal of Controlled Release, entitled “Efficient Gene Silencing in Metastatic Tumor by siRNA Formulated in Surface-Modified Nanoparticles” and “A Fast and Sensitive Method for Measuring the Integrity of siRNA-Carrier Complexes in Full Human Serum”.

The former, written by Dr. Leaf Huang at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, asserts that while investigators found that the targeted nanoparticle worked effectively in penetrating lung metastases, it left the liver cells untouched. Additionally, there was little immunotoxicity shown in the targeted nanoparticle.

In the latter study, written by Dr. Stefaan De Smedt at Ghent University in Belgium, potential uses for nanoparticle enabled siRNA therapeutics in both the preclinical and clinical study levels are described. A new technique being developed at the university measures the stability of formulations using fluorescence fluctuation spectroscopy. The stability of a serum containing nanoparticles is crucial to therapeutic efficacy, as most studies have proven that naked siRNA has a minimal effect, if any, on tumors.

In yet another report authored by Dr. Mark E. Davis, working in the Nanosystems Biology Cancer Center at the California Institute of Technology, mathematical modeling was used to show the results from experiments in a mouse. Published in the Biotechnology and Bioengineering journal, “Impact of Tumor-Specific Targeting and Dosing Schedule on Tumor Growth Inhibition After Intravenous Administration of siRNA-Containing Nanoparticles” provides optimization guidelines for the design of anticancer therapies based on siRNA.

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