Abstract
Viruses replicate inside the cells of an organism and continuously evolve to contend with an ever-changing environment. Many life-threatening diseases, such as AIDS, SARS, hepatitis and some cancers, are caused by viruses. Because viruses have small genome sizes and high mutability, there is currently a lack of and an urgent need for effective treatment for many viral pathogens. One approach that has recently received much attention is aptamer-based therapeutics. Aptamer technology has high target specificity and versatility, i.e., any viral proteins could potentially be targeted. Consequently, new aptamer-based therapeutics have the potential to lead a revolution in the development of anti-infective drugs. Additionally, aptamers can potentially bind any targets and any pathogen that is theoretically amenable to rapid targeting, making aptamers invaluable tools for treating a wide range of diseases. This review will provide a broad, comprehensive overview of viral therapies that use aptamers. The aptamer selection process will be described, followed by an explanation of the potential for treating virus infection by aptamers. Recent progress and prospective use of aptamers against a large variety of human viruses, such as HIV-1, HCV, HBV, SCoV, Rabies virus, HPV, HSV and influenza virus, with particular focus on clinical development of aptamers will also be described. Finally, we will discuss the challenges of advancing antiviral aptamer therapeutics and prospects for future success.
Highlights
Vaccination is the most effective means to prevent individuals from being infected with pathogenic viruses [1]
Because this mutual fitting could block several catalytic amino acid residues that are essential for integrase function, the binding site of the OND93del aptamer may contribute to its anti-HIV-1 activity
By taking advantage of the gp120 binding properties of an anti-gp120 aptamer, A-1, we tested the concept of using the gp120 aptamer to deliver anti-HIV-1 small interferingRNAs into HIV-1 infected cells, with the goals to enhance therapeutic efficacy and reduce the off-target effect of siRNAs. siRNA is being exploited as a new class of medicine for a variety of diseases to inhibit expression of complementary RNA transcripts, but its clinical translation is dampened by specific cell delivery and internalization
Summary
Vaccination is the most effective means to prevent individuals from being infected with pathogenic viruses [1]. These antiviral agents should completely eradicate viruses from the body without affecting normal cellular metabolism These features have not yet been achieved because of two main problems associated with use of these drugs: (1) the emergence of resistant viral strains and (2) cytotoxicity to host cells [6,7,8]. Some viruses, such as HIV-1, replicate its genome with high error rate [9]. We will discuss the challenges of advancing antiviral aptamer therapeutics and the prospects for future success
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