‘Design of new oligonucleotide-based antigene and antisensetherapies’

Agnès Noy Freixa, Alberto Pérez Antoñanzas, Antonio Morreale de León, Axel Bidón Chanal, Carles Eduard Curutchet Barat, Carles Ferrer Costa, David Talavera Baró, Elena Cubero Jorda, Francisco Javier Luque Garriga, Ignacio Soterras Gutiérrez, José Luís Gelpí Buchaca, José Ramón Blas Pastor, José Ramón Goñí Macià, Manuel Rueda Borrego, Martín Pérez Rodríguez, Modesto Orozco López, Xavier de la Cruz Montserrat.

Two projects will be carried out in parallel: i) the localization in the human genome of regions which can be potential targets for anti-gene and anti-sense therapies, and ii) optimization by molecular modelling of the oligonucleotide derivatives used to target cellular DNAs or RNAs following triplex, DNA-RNA or RNA-interference approaches.This will be pursued by a combination of sequence-based bioinformatic analysis techniques, which will be of value in identifying the best regions to act as targets for anti-gene therapies, and state of the art molecular modelling techniques, which will be used to design more effective oligonucleotides acting as drugs.The project seeks to obtain a full web-based map of targets for anti-sense and anti-gene strategies. This will permit immediate evaluation of their possibilities in the treatment of any pathology, the expected specifity of the treatment, and even the expected concentration of oligonucleotides necessary for the pharmacological action. In the modelling area, the expectation is to develop a new family of nuclease-resistant oligonucleotides which could be exploited for more active anti-gene and anti-sense strategies.