Gene therapy is a type of experimental treatment designed to correct faulty genetic material and help the patient recover from a disease. Now, scientists have succeeded in creating the smallest virus-like envelope that can self-assemble. This envelope can in the future be used as a carrier carrying DNA or RNA into the cells of the body.
![A virus-like envelope capable of delivering therapeutic genetic material into human cells [courtesy American Chemical Society]](https://www.hayadan.org.il/images/content3/2016/09/id446561.jpg.webp)
Gene therapy is a type of experimental treatment designed to correct faulty genetic material and help the patient recover from a disease. Now, scientists have succeeded in creating the smallest virus-like envelope that can self-assemble. This envelope can in the future be used as a carrier carrying DNA or RNA into the cells of the body.
The research findings were published in the scientific journal American Chemical Society. The field of gene therapy is fraught with resounding failures. At the same time, the approach of gene therapy remains a promising path for the treatment of a variety of diseases, from rare genetic diseases to much more common diseases, such as diabetes. Today, several clinical trials are being conducted within this type of treatment. One approach is to mimic the behavior of viruses. When they infect humans, viruses inject their genetic material into the body's cells. Artificial viruses have been developed to mimic this mechanism, but these viruses tend to stick together or are uneven in size, a result that reduces their effectiveness.
Instead of using whole proteins, the researchers used short peptide segments designed to self-assemble into tiny gene carriers, which are smaller than previously synthesized artificial viruses or even those that exist in nature. Experiments in the laboratory proved that the envelopes of the artificial viruses they developed were uniform in size and did not stick to each other. These particles will be able to store DNA or RNA segments inside them and transfer this genetic material into the human cells unharmed. Depending on the genetic material carried within these particles, the target cells will be able to express a new protein or inhibit the formation of specific proteins.
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