PMID: 8956554Jan 1, 1996Paper

Antisense oligonucleotides

Verhandelingen - Koninklijke Academie voor Geneeskunde van België
P Herdewijn

Abstract

Among the approaches which have been followed to convert a natural antisense phosphodiester oligonucleotide into a potential therapeutic agent, conjugation chemistry seems to be one of the most attractive. Indeed, natural phosphodiester oligonucleotide have the ideal properties (sequence specific hybridization, RNaseH activation, low or no toxicity, water solubility, easy and relative inexpensive synthesis in bulk quantities) to function as antisense oligomers. Their disadvantages are situated in their nuclease lability so that they are rapidly degraded in a biological medium, and to their low cellular uptake due to their polyanionic character. We investigated the minimum molecular modifications necessary to transform natural, partial self-complementary, phosphodiester oligonucleotides into a nuclease stable construct which is taken up in sufficient amounts in tumor cells to exert a selective antiproliferative effect. This study revealed that small aliphatic diols connected at the 3'-end gives oligonucleotides which are stable against nuclease degradation and which demonstrate potent and selective biological activity. Because of the low toxicity of both phosphodiester oligonucleotides and most aliphatic diols no cytotoxicity an...Continue Reading

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