RNA origami to aid delivery; plus sense-and-response ADAR base editing and more

Tongji University and Shanghai University researchers described in Nature Communications a lantern-shaped flexible RNA origami nanostructure for mRNA delivery that allows large regions of the mRNA to be exposed and translated, enabling manipulation of protein levels in vivo while also balancing endocytosis and translation efficiency.

When applied to an mRNA encoding the tumor suppressor gene SMAD4, the lantern-shaped flexible RNA structure, created using two customized circular RNAs to form the three-dimensional nanostructure and an RGD peptide to target tumors cells, suppressed tumor growth in a mouse xenograft model of colorectal cancer...