| خلاصه مقاله | Background: Nucleic acids (NAs) have pivotal role in storing and transferring the hereditary information from one generation to the next, makes them potential candidates in gene therapy. However, natural NAs have physicochemical properties rendering them liable to degrade by nucleases which limits their stability and restricts their function in biological applications. To overcome the stated drawback, modified nucleic acids, also called xeno nucleic acids (XNAs) has been widely designed and developed by researchers (1, 2). XNAs are analogous of NAs, with natural base and phosphate groups but chemically altered sugar ring. Cyclohexenyl nucleic acid (CeNA) is new class of XNAs, in that furanose sugar moiety has been replaced by cyclohexene ring. The aim of the present review is to discuss the CeNA properties, its function, and gene therapy related.
Method and materials: In this work, we have reviewed the results of selected articles published between 2010 and 2020 that analyzed the influence of incorporation CeNA in improving in vivo biological properties of natural NAs.
Results: It can be stated that presence of six-membered ring in CeNA were shown to boost CeNA therapeutic efficiency in clinical studies due to increasing their binding affinity, water solubility, nuclease resistance, flexibility, serum stability, and cellular uptake. The
flexibility of the cyclohexene ring system enables the CeNA adopt two half-chair conformations (3H2 and the 2H3 conformation) and strongly hybridize with RNA and
DNA. Strong hybridization of CeNA to its RNA complement causes effective activation of RNase H and degradation of RNA in antisense format.
Conclusion: According to the results of these studies, it can be concluded that CeNAs as new generation of XNAs seems to be ideal tools for antisense therapy applications. |