Optimization of antisense drug design against conservative local motif in simulant secondary structures of HER-2 mRNA and QSAR analysis.

Aim: To study the role of mRNA secondary structure stability in antisense drug design and obtain better antisense candidates against neu/HER-2/erbB-2 mRNA than previous report.

Methods: Program RNAstructure was utilized to simulate the secondary structures of HER-2 mRNA. Then 21 antisense phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotides (S-ODN) targeting different parts of secondary structural motif were designed.

Advancements of antisense oligonucleotides in treatment of breast cancer.

Breast cancer is one kind of multi-gene related malignancy. Overexpression of some oncogenes such as HER-2 (c-erbB-2, Neu), bcl-2/bcl-xL, protein kinase A (PKA), and transferrin receptor gene (TfR gene), etc significantly affect the prognosis of breast cancer. It was shown that specific suppression of the overexpressed genes above resulted in the improvement of the therapy of breast cancer.