Abstract

Systemic siRNA administration to target and treat glioblastoma, one of the most deadly cancers, requires robust and efficient delivery platform without immunogenicity. Here we report newly emerged multivalent naked RNA nanoparticle (RNP) based on pRNA 3-way-junction (3WJ) from bacteriophage phi29 to target glioblastoma cells with folate (FA) ligand and deliver siRNA for gene silencing. Systemically injected FA-pRNA-3WJ RNPs successfully targeted and delivered siRNA into brain tumor cells in mice, and efficiently reduced luciferase reporter gene expression (4-fold lower than control). The FA-pRNA-3WJ RNP also can target human patient-derived glioblastoma stem cells, thought to be responsible for tumor initiation and deadly recurrence, without accumulation in adjacent normal brain cells, nor other major internal organs. This study provides possible application of pRNA-3WJ RNP for specific delivery of therapeutics such as siRNA, microRNA and/or chemotherapeutic drugs into glioblastoma cells without inflicting collateral damage to healthy tissues.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-20-2015

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Oncotarget, v. 6, no. 17, p. 14766-14776.

Copyright @ 2008-2016 Impact Journals, LLC. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.3632

Funding Information

The current research was supported by the NIH grants U01CA151648 (P.G.), R01EB019036 (P.G.), U01CA152758 (C.M.C), R21CA175875 (I.N.), P01CA163205 (I.N.), P30NS045758 (B.K.), R01064607 (B.K.), R01CA150153 (B.K.), and P01CA163205 (B.K.). Funding to Peixuan Guo’s Endowed Chair in Nanobiotechnology at University of Kentucky is by the William Farish Endowment Fund.

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