Antisense therapeutics, synthetic oligonucleotides

Monteith DK, Levin AA. Synthetic oligonucleotides The development of antisense therapeutics. Toxicol Pathol 1999 27(1) 8-13. 

Nature itself utilises this system to down-regulate several gene products, and antisense sequences have been found to be expressed inside the cells. However, while the antisense approach is a convincing model for the inhibition of gene expression, several challenges have to be met to allow the use of synthetic oligonucleotides as therapeutic agents. 

Based on the efforts of these pioneers in NAD research, various NAD concepts have been presented. In this review issue, various types of NADs are introduced, and the recent status of NAD research is summarized by leaders in the field. This issue focuses on the following six aspects of NAD (1) antisense ohgonucleotides, (2) decoy DNA, (3) CpG-oligonucleotides, (4) aptamers, (5) NAD delivery, and (6) therapeutic applications. They have been involved in innovating new, particularly noteworthy synthetic routes for stereocontrolled synthesis of OPTs. 

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