Small RNAs and non-small cell lung cancer

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are commonly diagnosed with advanced disease and have limited therapeutic options. Experimental treatment approaches including small molecule targeted therapeutics, gene modified tumor vaccines, and viral-based gene therapy have induced tumor regression in a small proportion of patients, suggesting that advanced NSCLC is susceptible to molecular perturbations. RNA interference (RNAi) has generated considerable excitement as a potential cancer therapeutic application. RNAi is the process by which small, double stranded RNA molecules (small interfering RNA, or siRNA) can initiate sequence-specific, post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS). Cancer growth inhibition was attained through siRNA-knockdown of unique or overexpressed cancer oncogenetic messages that are relevant to NSCLC pathophysiology. As with other loss-of-function cancer gene therapy approaches, clinical efficacy of siRNA depends largely on the extent of cell target coverage at the locoregional and/or systemic level. Cationic liposomes as well as viral vectors have been used successfully for siRNA delivery. However, viral delivery may have more immediate relevance due to its wider clinical acceptance in the cancer gene therapy arena. We advocate the use of conditional replicative, oncolytic adenovirus for siRNA delivery, which offers potential benefits of restricted and renewable siRNA expression within the tumor microenvironment, and an additive anti-tumor outcome through viral oncolysis and siRNA-mediated oncogene-silencing, which we have demonstrated with the A549 NSCLC cell line. Several oncolytic adenoviral constructs are potentially applicable clinical platforms with proven infectivity and safety, which are feasible also for the delivery of microRNAs (miRNA), a recently discovered group of endogenous, small RNA with PTGS activity that is downregulated in lung cancer.