Antigene, ribozyme and aptamer nucleic acid drugs: progress and prospects

Nucleic acids are increasingly being considered for therapeutic uses, either to interfere with the function of specific nucleic acids or to bind specific proteins. Three types of nucleic acid drugs are discussed in this review: aptamers, compounds which bind specific proteins; triplex forming (antigene) compounds; which bind double stranded DNA; and ribozymes (catalytic RNA), which bind and cleave RNA targets. The binding of aptamers to protein may involve specific sequence recognition, although this is not always the case. The interaction of triplex forming oligonucleotides or ribozymes with their targets always involves specific sequence recognition and hybridization. Early optimism concerning the possibility of designing drugs without a priori knowledge of the structure of the target (except a nucleotide sequence) has been tempered by the finding that target structure has a dramatic effect upon the hybridization potential of the nucleic acid drug. Other obstacles to the creation of effective nucleic acid drugs are their relative high molecular weight (> 3300) and their sensitivity to degradation. The molecular weight of these compounds has created a significant delivery problem which needs to be solved if nucleic acid drugs are to become effective therapies.