RNAi technology: a revolutionary tool for the colorectal cancer therapeutics

With the many changes that have taken place in people's diet and lifestyle, colorectal cancer (CRC) has become a global concern. There were approximately 950000 new cases diagnosed and 500000 deaths recorded worldwide in 2000. It is the second most common type of cancer in the Western world, and it is the third most common type of digestive tumor in China. It is reported that the morbidity of CRC is 4.08/100000 for men and 3.30/100000 for women in China. Despite the rate of improvements in surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the overall five-year survival is around 50%. Therefore, novel treatment need to be developed in order to add to the therapeutic armamentarium. RNA interference (RNAi) is a sequence-specific post-transcriptional gene silencing mechanism, which is triggered by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) and causes degradation of mRNA homologous in sequence to the dsRNA. This new approach has been successfully adopted to inhibit virus replication and tumorigenicity. Recent reports have described DNA vector-based strategies for delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) into mammalian cells, further expanding the utility of RNAi. With the development of the RNAi technology and deeper understanding of this field, a promising new modality of treatment appeared, which can be used in combination with the existing therapies. We reviewed the proceedings on the actualities and advancement of RNAi technology for colorectal cancer therapeutics.