Peptide nucleic acids and their role in gene regulation and editing

Abstract

The unique properties of peptide nucleic acid (PNA) makes it a desirable candidate to be used in therapeutic and biotechnological interventions. It has been broadly utilized for numerous applications, with a major focus in regulation of gene expression, and more recently in gene editing. While the classic PNA design has mainly been employed to date, chemical modifications of the PNA backbone and nucleobases provide an avenue to advance the technology further. This review aims to discuss the recent developments in PNA based gene manipulation techniques and the use of novel chemical modifications to improve the current state of PNA mediated gene targeting.

Treatment of Human Glioblastoma U251 Cells with Sulforaphane and a Peptide Nucleic Acid (PNA) Targeting miR-15b-5p: Synergistic Effects on Induction of Apoptosis

“…Apoptosis has been proposed as a key target in the development of anti-tumor strategies [55][56][57][58][59][60], and the combination of several molecules involved in different pathways of apoptosis induction seems to be a promising strategy [61][62][63][64]. In this context, peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are biomolecules of great interest [17,18] and were recently proposed in biomedical applications as anti-sense molecules targeting mRNAs, strand-invasion properties, decoy activity and potential gene editors [18,65]. PNAs have also been proposed as potent inhibitors of microRNA functions [19].…”

The function of small RNA in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

“…The inherent and rapidly acquired resistance of P. aeruginosa to antibiotics is a challenging problem in clinical treatment. Due to the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria, new methods such as antibiotic-independent phage therapy and the use of antisense oligonucleotide peptide nucleic acid (PNA) to regulate gene expression have gradually appeared in people’s vision ( Chevallereau et al, 2016 ; Perera, Carufe & Glazer, 2021 ). To find how sRNA plays an important role in the regulatory network or the pathogen-host interaction, clarifying the function of sRNA will be conducive to developing advance disease treatment strategies and promoting the search for new antibiotics and their action targets.…”

Perspectives on conformationally constrained peptide nucleic acid (PNA): insights into the structural design, properties and applications

“…These properties together with the complete stability towards nucleases make PNA a potential tool for nucleic-acid-based therapeutics and other applications that rely on specific base-pairing. 10,11…”

“…These properties together with the complete stability towards nucleases make PNA a potential tool for nucleic-acid-based therapeutics and other applications that rely on specific base-pairing. 10,11 Even though the original aegPNA system already possesses many desirable characteristics and has been widely employed in various applications, there are still great demands for further improvement. During the three decades after the discovery of PNA, numerous modifications of the original aegPNA structure have been explored with the aim of improving the base-pairing efficiency and solubility, and introducing other functions in the PNA molecules such as cellular uptake or reporter groups.…”