A review of polymeric-micelle-based delivery of small interfering RNA for the treatment of diseases such as cancer was recently published in Particle by Jun Wang and co-workers Xi-Qiu Liu, Chun-Yang Sun, and Xian-Zhu Yang, working at the School of Life Sciences in the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and at Kunshan RNAi Institute, P.R. China.
A lot of work has been done on polymeric micelles, self assembled structures of core/shell-structured polymer amphiphilic materials in recent years. Such systems are used to deliver siRNA to different target sites, and have the potential of co-delivery of different drugs to the target site and the same time. The micelles serve to protect the siRNA in vivo to achieve effective accumulation in tumors, and can also be designed to target different specific cells and be responsive to external stimuli like pH and redox.
In the review, Professor Wang discusses the barriers impeding siRNA delivery, the different polymeric micelle systems that have been developed up to now, their gene silencing and therapeutic activity, and also recent work around co-delivery of drugs using micelles.
Professor Wang’s article, Polymeric-Micelle-Based Nanomedicine for siRNA Delivery can be found in the Wiley Online Library.
