Oligonucleotides able to hybridize bacterial RNA via in situ hybridization may potentially act as new antimicrobials, replacing antibiotics, and fast vivo diagnostic probes, outperforming current clinical methodologies. Nonetheless, oligonucleotides are not efficiently permeate the multi-layered envelope reach their target cytosol. Cationic fusogenic liposomes here suggested vehicles enable int...

A challenging task in systems biology is to decipher cell regulation mechanisms. By comparing networks observed in two different situations, the differential network analysis approach enables to highlight interaction differences that reveal specific cellular responses. The aim of our work is to study the role of natural anti-sense transcription on cellular regulation mechanisms. Our proposal is...

MicroRNA-96 (miR-96) expression is dysregulated in certain types of cancers. However, the role of miR-96 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) invasion and metastasis remains elusive. miR-96 expression was investigated in a number of HCC cell lines by quantitative reverse transcription‑polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Cell invasive ability of metas...

Plasmid DNA directing transcription of the noncoding (anti-sense) DNA strand can specifically inhibit the expression of several test genes as well as normal, endogenous genes. The anti-sense plasmid constructions can be introduced into eukaryotic cells by transfection or microinjection and function in both transient and stable transformation assays. Anti-sense transcripts complementary to as li...

The structural requirements for DNA/RNA hybrids to be suitable substrates for RNase H1 are well described; however the tolerance level of this enzyme towards modifications that do not alter the duplex conformation is not clearly understood, especially with respect to the sense RNA strand. In order to investigate the molecular requirements of Escherichia coli RNase H1 (termed RNase H1 here) with...

The data generated by the FANTOM (Functional Annotation of Mouse) consortium, Compugen and Affymetrix have collectively provided evidence that most of the mammalian genomes are actively transcribed. The emergence of an antisense RNA world brings new practical complexities to the study and detection of gene expression. However, we also need to address the fundamental questions regarding the func...

Abnormal elevation of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and triglyceride-rich lipoproteins in plasma as well as dysfunction of anti-atherogenic high-density lipoprotein (HDL) have both been recognized as essential components of the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and are classified as dyslipidemia. This review describes the arc of development of antisense oligonucleotides for the treatment of dysli...

Though a variety of different non-canonical nucleic acids conformations have been recognized, G-quadruplex structures are probably the structural motifs most commonly found within known oligonucleotide-based aptamers. This could be ascribed to several factors, as their large conformational diversity, marked responsiveness of their folding/unfolding processes to external stimuli, high structural...

The use and availability of nucleic acid probes are significantly greater than they were three to five years ago. This increased utilization has resulted because of numerous changes in molecular genetic procedures. First, the sources of probes have shifted from cloned genomic and cDNA fragments to single-strand oligonucleotides and RNA or "riboprobes." These newer probes offer defined compositi...