Rational truncation of an RNA aptamer to prostate-specific membrane antigen using computational structural modeling.

ABSTRACT: RNA aptamers represent an emerging class of pharmaceuticals with great potential for targeted cancer diagnostics and therapy. Several RNA aptamers that bind cancer cell-surface antigens with high affinity and specificity have been described. However, their clinical potential has yet to be realized. A significant obstacle to the clinical adoption of RNA aptamers is the high cost of manufacturing long RNA sequences through chemical synthesis. Therapeutic aptamers are often truncated postselection by using a trial-and-error process, which is time consuming and inefficient. Here, we used a "rational truncation" approach guided by RNA structural prediction and protein/RNA docking algorithms that enabled us to substantially truncateA9, an RNA aptamer to prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA),

SUBMITTER: Rockey WM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3198747 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature