The development and future of oligonucleotide-based therapies for cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is an attractive model in which to test gene-specific therapies, because elimination of the HPV oncogenes E6 and E7 may result in cancer cell senescence. Oligonucleotide-based therapies tested over the years include antisense oligonucleotides, ribozymes and, more recently, small interfering RNA (siRNA)-based treatments. The development and use of these technologies are reviewed. siRNA-based therapies have been touted as potential treatments for cancers, genetic disorders and viral infections and have a number of advantages over antisense and ribozyme technologies. As with the older technologies, in vitro testing of siRNAs against cervical cancer has shown promising results, however, the issues that held up the clinical development of ribozymes and antisense are currently also challenging the siRNA field; these are target selection, specificity and delivery. If these issues can be overcome, a range of new and potent therapies for cervical cancer could become available.