siRNA nanotherapeutics: a promising strategy for anti‐HBV therapy.

Aghamiri, Shahin; Jafarpour, Ali; Gomari, Mohammad Mahmoudi; Ghorbani, Jaber; Rajabibazl, Masoumeh; Payandeh, Zahra

Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is the most common cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and liver cirrhosis worldwide. In spite of the numerous advances in the treatment of CHB, drugs and vaccines have failed because of many factors like complexity, resistance, toxicity, and heavy cost. New RNA interference (RNAi)‐based technologies have developed innovative strategies to target Achilles' heel of the several hazardous diseases involving cancer, some genetic disease, autoimmune illnesses, and viral disorders particularly hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections. Naked siRNA delivery has serious challenges including failure to cross the cell membrane, susceptibility to the enzymatic digestion, and excretion by renal filtration, which ideally can be addressed by nanoparticle‐mediated delivery systems. cccDNA formation is a significant problem in obtaining HBV infections complete cure because of strength, durability, and lack of proper immune response. Nano‐siRNA drugs have a great potential to address this problem by silencing specific genes which are involved in cccDNA formation. In this article, the authors describe siRNA nanocarrier‐mediated delivery systems as a promising new strategy for HBV infections therapy. Simultaneously, the authors completely represent the clinical trials which use these strategies for treatment of the HBV infections.

IET Nanobiotechnology (Wiley-Blackwell), 2019, Vol 13, Issue 5, p457

1751-8741

Academic Journal

10.1049/iet-nbt.2018.5286