Selection of novel cell-internalizing RNA aptamer specific for CD22 antigen in B- Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

RUIZ-CIANCIO, DARIO; LIN, LI-HSIEN; VEERAMANI, SURESH; BARROS, MAYA N.; SANCHEZ, DIEGO; DI BARTOLO, ARY LAUTARO; MASONE, DIEGO; GIANGRANDE, PALOMA H.; MESTRE, MARÍA BELÉN; THIEL, WILLIAM H.

Molecular Therapy - Nucleic Acids

CellPress

Lugar: Cambridge, Massachusetts; Año: 2023 vol. 33 p. 698 - 712

2162-2531

Despite improvements in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) treatment, a significant number of patients experience relapse of the disease, resulting in poor prognosis and high mortality. One of the drawbacks of current B-ALL treatments is the high toxicity associated with the non-specificity of chemotherapeutic drugs. Targeted therapy is an appealing strategy to treat B-ALL to mitigate these toxic off-target effects. One such target is the B-cell cell surface protein CD22. The restricted expression of CD22 on the B-cell lineage and its ligand-induced internalizing properties make it an attractive target in cases of B-cell malignancies. To target B-cell ALL and the CD22 protein, we performed Cell-Internalization SELEX followed by Molecular docking to identify internalizing aptamers specific for B-cell ALL cells and that bind the CD22 cell surface receptor. We identified two RNA aptamers, B-ALL1 and B-ALL2, that target human malignant B cells with B-ALL1 being the first documented RNA aptamer interacting with the CD22 antigen. These B-cell ALL specific aptamers represent an important first step towards developing novel targeted therapies for B-cell malignancy treatments.