Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has a high fatality rate and limited therapeutic options with side effects and low efficacy. Here, we proposed a new anti-HCC approach based on cancer-specific post-transcriptional targeting. To this end, trans-splicing ribozymes from Tetrahymena group I intron were developed, which can specifically induce therapeutic gene activity through HCC-specific replacement of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) RNA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman cytoskeleton-associated protein 2 (hCKAP2) is upregulated and highly expressed in various human malignances. hCKAP2 has microtubule-stabilizing characteristics and potentially regulates the dynamics and assembly of the mitotic spindle and chromosome segregation, indicating that hCKAP2 plays important functions during mitosis. In this study, we evaluated hCKAP2 as a plausible anticancer target through development and validation of a targeted cancer gene therapy strategy based on targeting and replacement of hCKAP2 RNA using a trans-splicing ribozyme.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Microbiol Biotechnol
September 2009
Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), which prolongs the replicative life span of cells, is highly upregulated in 85-90% of human cancers, whereas most normal somatic tissues in humans express limited levels of the telomerase activity. Therefore, TERT has been a potential target for anticancer therapy. Recently, we described a new approach to human cancer gene therapy, which is based on the group I intron of Tetrahymena thermophila.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCytoskeleton-associated protein 2 (CKAP2) is known to be highly expressed in primary human cancers as well as most cancer cell lines. CKAP2 functions as microtubule stabilizer and probably as cell proliferation inducer, indicating that CKAP2 might be a potential anticancer target. In this study, we developed a specific ribozyme that can replace mouse CKAP2 (mCKAP2) RNA with new transcripts through trans-splicing reaction.
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