Table 1.

Comparison of different forms of synthetic nucleic acids used in therapeutic strategies that target bacterial RNAs.

	PNA	PMO	LNA/DNA oligomers
Nuclease resistance	High	High	High
RNA binding strength relative to nucleic acids	Increased	Increased	Increased
Typical delivery method	Conjugation to peptide	Conjugation to peptide or direct modification	Naturally uptaken
Toxicity	Low*	Low*	Low
Electric charge	Non-ionic	Non-ionic	Anionic
Target specificity	Moderate	Moderate	High
Induction of RNase H cleavage	No	No	Yes

^*Note: peptide conjugate may be toxic.