Locked nucleic acid (LNA): High affinity targeting of RNA for diagnostics and therapeutics

Locked nucleic acid (LNA): High affinity targeting of RNA for diagnostics and therapeutics.

Locked nucleic acid (LNA) is a nucleic acid analogue containing one or more LNA nucleotide monomers with a bicyclic furanose unit locked in an RNA mimicking sugar conformation. This conformational restriction results in unprecedented hybridization affinity towards complementary single stranded RNA and thus, makes LNA uniquely suited for mimicking RNA structures and sequence specific targeting o...

NMR solution structures of LNA (locked nucleic acid) modified quadruplexes

We have determined the NMR solution structures of the quadruplexes formed by d(TGLGLT) and d(TL4T), where L denotes LNA (locked nucleic acid) modified G-residues. Both structures are tetrameric, parallel and right-handed and the native global fold of the corresponding DNA quadruplex is retained upon introduction of the LNA nucleotides. However, local structural alterations are observed owing to...

Nucleic Acid Aptamers: Research Tools in Disease Diagnostics and Therapeutics

Aptamers are short sequences of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) or peptide molecules which adopt a conformation and bind cognate ligands with high affinity and specificity in a manner akin to antibody-antigen interactions. It has been globally acknowledged that aptamers promise a plethora of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Although use of nucleic acid aptamers as targeted therapeutics or med...

Nucleic acid localization in diagnostics and therapeutics by Supriya

Nucleic acid aptamers for targeting of shRNA-based cancer therapeutics

Aptamers are nucleic acid ligands which have been validated to bind to epitopes with a specificity similar to that of monoclonal antibodies. Aptamers have been primarily investigated for their direct function in terms of inhibition of protein targets; however, recent evidence gives reason to actively explore aptamers as targeting moieties for delivery of anticancer therapeutics. Many aptamers h...