Ligand-installed polymeric micelles for tissue-specific nucleic acid delivery

Mitsuru Naito, Kanjiro Miyata

Center for Disease Biology and Integrative Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo

Nucleic acid-based therapy has a strong potential for treatment of various intractable diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. However, the bioavailability of nucleic acid drugs is substantially low because of their fragility in human body, especially in the bloodstream. Therefore, a variety of delivery carriers have been developed to improve the bioavailability of nucleic acid drugs for the past two decades. Among them, polymeric micelles are one of the most promising formulations. Particularly, they are highly functionalized by installing targeting ligand molecules for target tissue-specific nucleic acid delivery.

Address correspondence to Dr. Kanjiro Miyata, Center for Disease Biology and Integrative Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo (7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan)