Superparamagnetic nanoparticles and RNAi-mediated gene silencing: Evolving class of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics

Abstract

The ever increasing death of patients affected by various types of fatal cancers is of concern worldwide. Curative attempts by radiation/chemotherapy and surgery are often a failure in the long run. Moreover, adverse side effects of such treatments burden the patients with painful survival at the last phase of their life. The failure of early diagnosis is one of the root causes of the problem. Intensive research activities are being pursued in reputed laboratories across the globe to find superior diagnostics and therapeutics. Over the last decade, a number of publications have highlighted RNA interference based silencing of cancer-related gene expression as a promising technology to tackle the aforesaid problems. Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are reported to be excellent vehicles for short-interfering RNA (siRNA). The SPION-siRNA conjugate is biocompatible, stable, and amenable to specific targeting and can cross the blood brain barrier. The issues related to their synthesis, surface properties, delivery, tracking, imaging in relevance to cancer diagnostic and therapeutic, and so forth demand an extensive review, and we have addressed these aspects in this paper. The future prospects of the technology have also been traced. Copyright © 2012 Sanchareeka Dey and Tapas K. Maiti.