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Review
. 2023 Jan 12;22(1):8.
doi: 10.1186/s12943-022-01696-5.

Unravelling the enigma of siRNA and aptamer mediated therapies against pancreatic cancer

Zhe Liu #  1 , Neha Parveen #  2 , Urushi Rehman #  2 , Aisha Aziz  2 , Afsana Sheikh  2 , Mohammed A S Abourehab  3 , Wei Guo  1 , Junhao Huang  1 , Zhenning Wang  4   5   6 , Prashant Kesharwani  7   8
Affiliations
Review

Unravelling the enigma of siRNA and aptamer mediated therapies against pancreatic cancer

Zhe Liu et al. Mol Cancer. .

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a fatal disease that has a poor 5-year survival rate. The poor prognosis can be attributed to both troublesome detections at the initial stage, which makes the majority of the treatment options largely unsuccessful and leads to extensive metastasis, as well as to its distinct pathophysiological characteristics, such as rich desmoplastic tumours bounded by dysplastic and hypo perfused vessels restricting the mobility of therapeutic agents. Continued attempts have been made to utilise innovative measures for battling PC to increase the therapeutic effectiveness of therapies and overcome their cytotoxicity. Combined cancer targeting and gene silencing approach has shown improved outcomes in patients' survival rates and quality of life, offering a potential solution to therapeutic complications. It particularly targets various barriers to alleviate delivery problems and diminish tumour recurrence and metastasis. While aptamers, a type of single-stranded nucleic acids with strong binding affinity and specificity to target molecules, have recently surfaced as a viable PC strategy, siRNA can interfere with the expression of certain genes. By concurrently suppressing genes and boosting targeted approach, the cocktail of siRNA/Aptamer and other therapeutic drugs can circumvent the multi-drug resistance phenomena. Additionally, combination therapy with additive or synergistic effects can considerably increase the therapeutic efficacy of anti-cancer medications. This study outlines the primary difficulties in treating PC, along with recent developments in siRNA/Aptamer mediated drug delivery to solve the major hiccup of oncology field.

Keywords: Aptamers; Chemotherapeutic; Combination therapy; Nanoparticles; Pancreatic cancer; siRNA.

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Conflict of interest statement

There is no conflict of interest and disclosures associated with the manuscript.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Development and progression of the pancreatic cancer
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Conventional treatment approaches for pancreatic cancer
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Hurdles in the path of treatment of pancreatic cancer
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
The combinatorial approach using siRNA and aptamer for pancreatic cancer and potential benefits
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
A Study design. B siG12D-LODER™ is placed with Endoscopic US biopsy needle. Reproduced with permission from [121]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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