MDK-siRNA

MDK-siRNA is a **small interfering RNA (siRNA)** therapeutic designed to silence the expression of the midkine (MDK) gene. Midkine is a heparin-binding growth factor implicated in various cancers, where it promotes cell proliferation, survival, metastasis, and drug resistance. By targeting MDK mRNA, MDK-siRNA utilizes the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway to induce the degradation of MDK transcripts, thereby inhibiting its oncogenic functions. Preclinical studies show that MDK-siRNA can decrease MDK expression in tumor cells, increase their sensitivity to chemotherapeutic agents, and potentially reverse multidrug resistance. siRNA-mediated silencing of MDK is being investigated as a precision approach in cancer therapy and possibly in chronic inflammatory diseases[1][6][9]. The cellular mechanism involves the incorporation of the siRNA into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), which recognizes and cleaves complementary MDK mRNA, preventing translation into protein[3][5][10][11].