Breast cancer is the most common
cancer in women worldwide. Despite recent developments in
breast cancer detection and treatment, 1.38 million women each year are still affected.
Breast cancer heterogeneity at the population and single-cell level, complexity and developing different
metastases are setting several challenges to develop efficient
breast cancer therapies. RNA interference (RNAi) represents an opportunity to silence gene expression and inhibit specific pathways in
cancer cells. In order to reap the full advantages of
RNAi-based therapy, different pathways that sustain
cancer cells growth have been targeted using specific siRNAs. The present study investigated the ability of a set of cytotoxic siRNAs to inhibit growth of
breast cancer cells. These siRNAs are targeting eukaryotic
elongation factor 2 (EEF2),
polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1),
G protein-coupled receptor kinase 4 (GRK4) and
sphingosine kinase interacting
protein (SKIP5). To facilitate their targeted delivery, the human
epidermal growth factor receptor-3 (HER3)-specific aptamer A30 was used. The in vitro results described in this work indicate that combining the highly specific HER3 aptamer with cytotoxic siRNAs targeting (EEF2, PLK1, GRK4 and SKIP5) can inhibit its activity and ultimately suppress proliferation of HER3 positive
breast cancer cells.