title: Affinity approaches in RNAi-based therapeutics purification.
abstract: The recent investigation on RNA interference (RNAi) related mechanisms and applications led to an increased awareness of the importance of RNA in biology. Nowadays, RNAi-based technology has emerged as a potentially powerful tool for silencing gene expression, being exploited to develop new therapeutics for treating a vast number of human disease conditions, as it is expected that this technology can be translated onto clinical applications in a near future. This approach makes use of a large number of small (namely short interfering RNAs, microRNAs and PIWI-interacting RNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), which are likely to have a crucial role as the next generation therapeutics. The commercial and biomedical interest in these RNAi-based therapy applications have fostered the need to develop innovative procedures to easily and efficiently purify RNA, aiming to obtain the final product with high purity degree, good quality and biological activity. Recently, affinity chromatography has been applied to ncRNAs purification, in view of the high specificity. Therefore, this article intends to review the biogenesis pathways of regulatory ncRNAs and also to discuss the most significant and recent developments as well as applications of affinity chromatography in the challenging task of purifying ncRNAs. In addition, the importance of affinity chromatography in ncRNAs purification is addressed and prospects for what is forthcoming are presented.
authors.affiliation: CICS-UBI-Health Sciences Research Centre, University of Beira Interior, Avenida Infante D. Henrique, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal.
authors.forename: Patrícia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.affiliation: CICS-UBI-Health Sciences Research Centre, University of Beira Interior, Avenida Infante D. Henrique, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal.
authors.forename: João A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Queiroz
authors.affiliation: CICS-UBI-Health Sciences Research Centre, University of Beira Interior, Avenida Infante D. Henrique, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal; CNC-Center of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Largo Marquês de Pombal, 3004-517 Coimbra, Portugal.
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Figueiras
authors.affiliation: CICS-UBI-Health Sciences Research Centre, University of Beira Interior, Avenida Infante D. Henrique, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal. Electronic address: fani.sousa@fcsaude.ubi.pt.
authors.forename: Fani
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sousa
mesh_terms: D002846:Chromatography, Affinity; D006801:Humans; D022661:RNA, Untranslated / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D000067492:RNAi Therapeutics
chemical_list: D022661:RNA, Untranslated
keywords: Affinity chromatography; Non-coding RNAs; RNA purification; Review