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Multimeric small interfering ribonucleic acid for highly efficient sequence-specific gene silencing

Nature Materials volume 9, pages 272–278 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Small interfering RNA (siRNA) with 19–21 base pairs has been recently recognized as a new therapeutic agent for effectively silencing a specific gene on a post-transcription level. For siRNA therapeutics, safe and efficient delivery issues are significant hurdles to clinical applications. Here we present a new class of biologically active siRNA structure based on chemically self-crosslinked and multimerized siRNA through cleavable disulphide linkages. The multimerized siRNA can produce more stable and compact polyelectrolyte complexes with less cytotoxic cationic carriers than naked siRNA because of substantially increased charge densities and the presence of flexible chemical linkers in the backbone. The cleavable and multimerized siRNA shows greatly enhanced gene-silencing efficiencies in vitro and in vivo through a target-messenger-RNA-specific RNA interference processing without significantly eliciting immune induction. This study demonstrates that the multimerized siRNA structure complexed with selected cationic condensing agents can serve as potential gene-silencing therapeutics for treating various diseases.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Biochemical and physical characterizations of multi-siRNA complexes.
Figure 3: Gene-silencing effect by multi-siRNA complexes in vitro and in vivo.
Figure 4: Sequence-specific gene-silencing effect of cleavable VEGF multi-siRNA/LPEI complexes and their nonspecific immune responses in vitro and in vivo.

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Acknowledgements

We thank H. Lee for the measurement of a deflection force using AFM. This study was supported by an Intelligent Drug Delivery System grant and the World Class University programme from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Republic of Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences and Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 305-701, South Korea

    Hyejung Mok, Soo Hyeon Lee, Ji Won Park & Tae Gwan Park

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  1. Hyejung Mok
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  2. Soo Hyeon Lee
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  3. Ji Won Park
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Contributions

H.M. and T.G.P. conceived and designed the experiments. H.M. and S.H.L. prepared and characterized multi-siRNA and carried out in vitro cell experiments. H.M., S.H.L. and J.W.P. carried out in vivo animal studies. H.M. and T.G.P. prepared the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Tae Gwan Park.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Mok, H., Lee, S., Park, J. et al. Multimeric small interfering ribonucleic acid for highly efficient sequence-specific gene silencing. Nature Mater 9, 272–278 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2626

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