The non-coding RNAs of the H19-IGF2 imprinted loci: A focus on biological roles and therapeutic potential in Lung Cancer

Table 1 Comparison between different possible therapeutic agents for lung cancer

	BC-819	BC-821	siRNA*	Anti-miR*
Nature	Plasmid DNA.	Plasmid DNA.	Double stranded RNA.	Antisense RNA.
Targeted therapy	Yes.	Yes.	Yes.	Yes.
Stability	Relatively stable in serum [83-85].	Relatively stable in serum [87,89,90].	Rapidly degraded by serum nuclease.	Rapidly degraded by serum nuclease.
Safety	Mild safety problems [83-85].	Safe in animal model. In human subject ND.	ND	ND
Homogeneity	Very high	Very high	Depends on manufacturing process.	Depends on manufacturing process.
Pharmacokinetics	Well established [51,83].	Well established.	ND	ND
Mode of action	Suppresses translation initiation specifically in cancer cells leading to cell death.	Suppresses translation initiation specifically in cancer cells leading to cell death.	Knockdown target gene mRNA depends on intrinsic RNAI machinery.	Knockdown target microRNA level depends on complementary base pairing.
Combinational therapy	Can be given alone or in combination with conventional drugs.	Can be given alone or in combination with conventional drugs.	Can be given alone or in combination with conventional drugs.	Can be given alone or in combination with conventional drugs.
Transfection efficiency	Low.	Low. Bigger plasmid size expected to have lower transfection efficiency.	High.	ND.
Therapeutic index	High	Very high	High	ND.
Costs	Relatively low	Relatively low	Relatively high	Relatively high

ND: Not determined.
* Could be engineered through DNA plasmid vectors and thus have mostly the characteristics of plasmid vectors.
The table summarizes different aspects related to the therapeutic tools showing advantages and disadvantages of each tool where possible.

ISSN: 1479-5876