Deoxyribozymes as Inhibitors of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Growth

DNA enzymes, or DNAzymes, are all-DNA molecules with inherent catalytic activity that bind and cleave at their complementary sequence in the target mRNA through Watson-Crick base pairing. These agents have been successfully used to tease out the role the targeted gene plays in both cellular systems and in a variety of animal models. DNAzymes have the potential to serve as novel nucleic acid-based therapeutic agents in pathologies involving aberrant smooth muscle cell growth and a range of other disorders.