Recent Cutting-Edge Technologies for the Delivery of Peptide Nucleic Acid

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) have garnered significant attention due to their enhanced chemical, physical, and binding properties in comparison to natural nucleic acids. This prompted their application in antigene/antisense approach, assigning them a pivotal role in gene editing and, more recently, showing their potential as "bilingual" molecules being able "to speak" both nucleic acid and protein language. However, to expand the applications of PNAs in therapy, the challenge of effectively delivering PNAs to cells needs to be addressed. Among several delivery approaches employed so far, the nanotechnology-based ones showed great potential. In this review, we provide an overview of the latest in the field (2019 to present), beginning from peptide-based delivery systems, as well as cutting-edge approaches involving nanoparticles, liposomes, and calixarene, showing how they have inspired the development of smarter delivery approaches to boost PNAs applications.