Nucleic Acid-based Molecular Treatment of Allergy

The pathogenesis of allergy remains unclear. Therefore the standard treatment is mainly focused on reduction of clinical sympthoms of hypersensitivity reaction without eliminating the cause of that. Moreover, being multidirectional and unselective, such treatment affects quite frequently tissues not involved in allergic reactions and thus it could result in numerous adverse effects. The most popular hypothesis concerning pathogenesis of allergy assumes a pivotal role of some abnormalities in immunoregulatory cytokines network. Thus, it is obvious that major goal of causal allergy treatment should be restoration of cytokine balance. The recent advances in genetic engineering enabled creation of new treatment strategies also in allergy. Therefore, numerous studies concerning molecular therapy of allergic diseases have been undertaken. The most recent therapeutical approaches, including antisense oligonucleotides, RNA interference technology and gene therapy in allergy treatment have been detaily discussed in this review. Despite the fact that many of these topic methods are still in the trial phase, we suppose they will become a clinical reality in the near future.