Our new research paper titled “The siRNAsome: A Cation Free and Versatile Nanostructure for siRNA and Drug Codelivery” was recently accepted for publication on Angewandte Chemie International Edition (doi: 10.1002/anie.201814289). In this article, we report a novel siRNA-based vesicle (siRNAsome) nanostructure which consists of a hydrophilic siRNA shell, a thermal and intracellular reduction sensitive hydrophobic median layer, and an empty aqueous interior. The siRNAsome can serve as a versatile nanostructure to load drug agents with divergent chemical properties and therapeutic proteins. The addition of siRNA shell not only stabilizes nanoparticles, but also provides an opportunity to deliver siRNA which is complementary to the drug, thus achieving synergistic therapeutic effects of siRNA and other drugs. As a multi-purpose nanostructure, siRNAsome in this study can be used for the synergistic treatment of chemical drugs, therapeutic proteins and siRNA, and is expected to target a wider range of diseases in gene therapy.

Angewandte Chemie International Edition is an international top peer-reviewed journal with a current IF of 12.10.

Dr. Zheng and P.h.D candidate Tong Jiang are shared first authors, and Prof. Shi is the corresponding author. This project was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 31600809, 31800841, U1604177 and U1804139), the National Key Technologies R&D Program of China (2018YFA0209800), the Program of China’s 1000-Talents Plan, the Key Research Program in Colleges and Universities of Henan Province (19zx006), Australian Endeavour Fellowship (No.69172018), Mason Foundation National Medical Program (MAS2017F034) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Dementia Fellowship (APP1111611).