Abstract
Cancer is linked to abbarent gene expression, so that its correction can be an effective approach to treating cancer patients. Silencing oncogenes or other genes contributing to tumor progression or metastasis will provide a cancer-specific therapy with minimal side effects.
RNA interference has realized the silencing of target mRNA expression in a sequence-specific manner. Both small interfering RNA (siRNA) and vectors expressing short hairpin RNA (shRNA) have been reported to be effective in silencing the genes of interest once they enter target cells. Plasmid DNA expressing shRNA (pshRNA) inhibits the expression of target genes for a longer period of time than siRNA. Because gene expression can be silenced only in cells reached by pshRNA, its delivery to tumor cells is an important factor determining its efficacy on cancer therapy.
Here we review several approaches to delivering pshRNA to tumor cells for cancer therapy.
