Emerging biotechnological strategies for non-viral antiangiogenic gene therapy

Angiogenesis has emerged as a promising target of cancer treatment. With the development of biotechnology, major progress has been made in the exploring effective therapies on targeting tumor angiogenesis over the last 20 years. Gene therapy has attracted considerable interest by virtue of the capabilities of expressing sustained levels of therapeutic agents within cells of the patients. However, the major challenge of gene therapy is the efficient delivery of therapeutic gene to the target site. Compared with viral strategies, non-viral strategies were more acceptable by their widely recognized security and lower side effects. This paper reviews the basic biology of angiogenesis, the potential advantages of antiangiogenic gene therapy, the therapeutic genetic drugs developed through biotechnology, as well as the biotechnological strategies that enhancing non-viral gene therapy targeting to tumor angiogenesis in a more controlled manner, with great respect to RNA interference, ligand-directed vascular targeting strategies, vascular endothelial growth factor pathway and tumor associated macrophages targeting. In conclusion, antiangiogenic gene therapy holds great promise in advancing cancer therapy. Developing better non-viral biotechnological platforms will benefit antiangiogenic targeted cancer gene therapeutic methods, support their evaluation in human clinical trials and realize the actual utilization in the near future.