Table 6.

Representative examples of DNA‐based structures in therapy

Treatment class	Current NP‐based therapies	Current deficiencies	What is DNA offering	Examples	Ref
Drug delivery	NPs, liposomes, albumin bound, PEGylation	Renal clearance, low tumor penetration, system toxicity, MDR	Specificity, high tumor penetration, overcome MDR	Dox delivery using DNA structures, metal‐complex drug delivery	[[qv: 25,48a,51c,73a,76,77,81,87b,144]]
Protein/enzyme delivery	NPs, liposomes, albumin bound, PEGylation	Renal clearance, limited cellular internalization, stability	Specificity, cellular uptake	Thrombin delivery	[[qv: 48c,145]]
Immunostimulation and vaccines	Inactivated whole organisms, virus‐like particles	Low specificity, cell internalization deficiency	Vehicle to cross cell membrane	DNA triangle‐assisted delivery of CpG sequences, tetrahedral‐antigen precursor activator	[[qv: 58,74a]]
Gene therapy	NPs, viral capsules	Cell internalization, transport to the nucleus	Improved drug retention in cells	DNA structure‐assisted delivery of miRNA, siRNA,DNAzymes	52, 61, 77, 146
Combinatorial therapy	–	Controlled attachment of different therapeutic agents	Substrate to attach various NPs and biomolecules	DNA structure‐directed assembly of AuNR‐based photodynamic therapy	[[qv: 87a,144c,147]]

MDR, multidrug resistance; PEG, polyethylene glycol; miRNA, microRNA; siRNA, small interfering RNA.