ABSTRACT

Spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) represent a rapidly emerging class of nanoparticle (NP)-based therapeutics. This chapter discusses the preparation methods and biomedical applications of SNAs. A novel 3D nucleic acid architecture, referred to as the SNA, is described in this chapter. Despite the fact that most of developed SNA conjugates are based on gold NPs, there are examples of other inorganic cores used for the construction of SNAs. SNAs have been utilized in a number of important biomedical applications. Besides drugs and other small molecules, larger structures, such as antibodies, could be attached to the SNAs and evaluated for potential therapeutic applications. The ability to tune the oligonucleotide sequence of SNAs is an extremely powerful tool for the design of SNA-based cancer therapeutics. Common spacers are composed of short sequences of DNA bases such as adenine and thymine or synthetic oligo moieties.