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Review
. 2020 Sep 17;25(18):4267.
doi: 10.3390/molecules25184267.

Aptamer-Based In Vivo Therapeutic Targeting of Glioblastoma

Valeriana Cesarini  1   2 , Chiara Scopa  1 , Domenico Alessandro Silvestris  1 , Andrea Scafidi  1 , Valerio Petrera  1 , Giada Del Baldo  1 , Angela Gallo  1
Affiliations
Review

Aptamer-Based In Vivo Therapeutic Targeting of Glioblastoma

Valeriana Cesarini et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive, infiltrative, and lethal brain tumor in humans. Despite the extensive advancement in the knowledge about tumor progression and treatment over the last few years, the prognosis of GBM is still very poor due to the difficulty of targeting drugs or anticancer molecules to GBM cells. The major challenge in improving GBM treatment implicates the development of a targeted drug delivery system, capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and specifically targeting GBM cells. Aptamers possess many characteristics that make them ideal novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of GBM. They are short single-stranded nucleic acids (RNA or ssDNA) able to bind to a molecular target with high affinity and specificity. Several GBM-targeting aptamers have been developed for imaging, tumor cell isolation from biopsies, and drug/anticancer molecule delivery to the tumor cells. Due to their properties (low immunogenicity, long stability, and toxicity), a large number of aptamers have been selected against GBM biomarkers and tested in GBM cell lines, while only a few of them have also been tested in in vivo models of GBM. Herein, we specifically focus on aptamers tested in GBM in vivo models that can be considered as new diagnostic and/or therapeutic tools for GBM patients' treatment.

Keywords: GBM; GBM therapy; aptamers; drug delivery; nanoparticles.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of a Cell-Systematic Evolution of Ligands by SELEX method. Initially, a library of oligonucleotides is incubated with the target cells. The unbound sequences are removed by washing, while the bound sequences are collected. After an incubation with the negative cells, the bound sequences are discarded, while the unbound sequences are collected and amplified by PCR. The PCR products are utilized for the next round of selection. After several selection rounds, the enriched sequences are sequenced and characterized [47].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic representation of aptamers in in vivo applications.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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