Cited by 417RNA Interference and Gene DeliveryRNA and protein synthesis mechanismsRNA Research and Splicing

The challenge and prospect of mRNA therapeutics landscape

Weng, Yuhua, Li, Chunhui, Yang, Tongren, Hu, Bo, Zhang, Mengjie, Guo, Shuai, Xiao, Haihua, Liang, Xing-Jie +1 more·2020·Biotechnology Advances

Abstract

Messenger RNA (mRNA)-based therapeutics hold the potential to cause a major revolution in the pharmaceutical industry because they can be used for precise and individualized therapy, and enable patients to produce therapeutic proteins in their own bodies without struggling with the comprehensive manufacturing issues associated with recombinant proteins. Compared with the current therapeutics, the production of mRNA is much cost-effective, faster and more flexible because it can be easily produced by in vitro transcription, and the process is independent of mRNA sequence. Moreover, mRNA vaccines allow people to develop personalized medications based on sequencing results and/or personalized conditions rapidly. Along with the great potential from bench to bedside, technical obstacles facing mRNA pharmaceuticals are also obvious. The stability, immunogenicity, translation efficiency, and delivery are all pivotal issues need to be addressed. In the recently published research results, these issues are gradually being overcome by state-of-the-art development technologies. In this review, we describe the structural properties and modification technologies of mRNA, summarize the latest advances in developing mRNA delivery systems, review the preclinical and clinical applications, and put forward our views on the prospect and challenges of developing mRNA into a new class of drug.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2020.107534

Cites

290 of 290 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • mRNA vaccines still suffer from decreased efficacy due to poor RNA stability in solution and in vivo and to limited expression of the payload mRNA.

    “mRNA vaccines still suffer from decreased efficacy due to poor RNA stability in solution and in vivo and to limited expression of the payload mRNA; these are all pivotal issues that need to be carefully optimized for preclinical and clinical applications3–6.”
  • 5-methylcytidine (m5C) and pseudouridine (ψ) nucleotide modifications lower immunogenicity while increasing translation efficiency.

    “5-methylcytidine (m5C) and pseudouridine (ψ) nucleotide modifications are commonly preferred in base-pair alterations as they lower immunogenicity while increasing the efficiency of translation (Weng 2020).”
  • 5-methylcytidine (m5C) and pseudouridine (ψ) are the most preferred base-pair alterations because they lower immunogenicity while increasing translation efficiency.

    “5-methylcytidine (m5C), and pseudouridine (ψ) are the most preferred base-pair alterations because they lower immunogenicity while increasing translation efficiency (Weng 2020).”
  • Low stability of RNA in the cell causes premature degradation of RNA, low translational efficiency, and a decrease in the level and duration of expression of the target protein.

    “Low stability of RNA in the cell causes premature degradation of RNA, low translational efficiency, and a decrease in the level and duration of expression of the target protein [2].”
  • In comparison with recombinant-protein drugs, the development of mRNA-based therapeutics is faster and more flexible owing to the transcription of mRNA in a cell-free in vitro system.

    “In comparison with recombinant-protein drugs, the development of mRNA-based therapeutics is faster and more flexible owing to the transcription of mRNA in a cell-free in vitro system [2].”

Cites

1 retracted

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Weng, Y., Li, C., Yang, T., Hu, B., Zhang, M., Guo, S., Xiao, H., Liang, X.-J., & Huang, Y.
Affiliations
  • Beijing Institute of Technology (CN)
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
Corresponding author
Huang, Yuanyu
Venue
Biotechnology Advances
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-05
Volume
40
Pages
107534
ISSN
0734-9750 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3007447370
Cited by
417
References
290
Citations by year
2026: 55 · 2025: 80 · 2024: 72 · 2023: 72 · 2022: 74 · 2021: 52 · 2020: 12
FWCI
5.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Biotechnology Advances (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA Interference and Gene Delivery
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA Research and Splicing
Keywords
mRNA therapeutics, mRNA vaccines, mRNA modification, mRNA delivery systems, mRNA stability, immunogenicity, translation efficiency, in vitro transcription, personalized medicine, preclinical and clinical development
MeSH terms
Drug Industry, Pharmaceutical Preparations, Humans, Proteins, RNA, Messenger, Vaccines

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review