Significance and applications of nanoparticles in siRNA delivery for cancer therapy

RNAi is a powerful gene silencing process that holds great promise in cancer therapy by the use of siRNA. The aim of this review is to give an outline on different approaches to deliver siRNA and to describe the advantages and disadvantages of these systems. The prospects for siRNA are to be substantially better than other therapies, as they are easily applicable to any therapeutic target. They also promise potent gene inhibition with exquisite selectivity, down to the level of a single nucleotide polymorphism, and can easily identify offending proteins or variants by screening across a gene sequence. The main obstacle of using RNAi technology in cancer treatment is to protect such a fragile and quickly metabolized biological molecule and to efficiently deliver it in vivo to the target cells. Therefore, there is a requirement for new systems, such as nanoparticles, for siRNA delivery to help the siRNAs reach, and improve their biodistribution in, target tissues.