Drug delivery across length scales

Over the last century, there has been a dramatic change in the nature of therapeutic, biologically active molecules available to treat disease. Therapies have evolved from extracted natural products towards rationally designed biomolecules, including small molecules, engineered proteins and nucleic acids. The use of potent drugs which target specific organs, cells or biochemical pathways, necessitates new tools which can enable controlled delivery and dosing of these therapeutics to their biological targets. Here, we review the miniaturisation of drug delivery systems from the macro to nano-scale, focussing on controlled dosing and controlled targeting as two key parameters in drug delivery device design. We describe how the miniaturisation of these devices enables the move from repeated, systemic dosing, to on-demand, targeted delivery of therapeutic drugs and highlight areas of focus for the future

Regulation of BRCA1 expression and its relationship to sporadic breast cancer

Germ-line mutations in the BRCA1 tumour suppressor gene contribute to familial breast tumour formation, but there is no evidence for direct mutation of the BRCA1 gene in the sporadic form of the disease. In contrast, decreased expression of the BRCA1 gene has been shown to be common in sporadic tumours, and the magnitude of the decrease correlates with disease progression. BRCA1 expression is also tightly regulated during normal breast development. Determining how these developmental regulators of BRCA1 expression are co-opted during breast tumourigenesis could lead to a better understanding of sporadic breast cancer aetiology and the generation of novel therapeutic strategies aimed at preventing sporadic breast tumour progression

SOX2 Co-Occupies Distal Enhancer Elements with Distinct POU Factors in ESCs and NPCs to Specify Cell State

SOX2 is a master regulator of both pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and multipotent neural progenitor cells (NPCs); however, we currently lack a detailed understanding of how SOX2 controls these distinct stem cell populations. Here we show by genome-wide analysis that, while SOX2 bound to a distinct set of gene promoters in ESCs and NPCs, the majority of regions coincided with unique distal enhancer elements, important cis-acting regulators of tissue-specific gene expression programs. Notably, SOX2 bound the same consensus DNA motif in both cell types, suggesting that additional factors contribute to target specificity. We found that, similar to its association with OCT4 (Pou5f1) in ESCs, the related POU family member BRN2 (Pou3f2) co-occupied a large set of putative distal enhancers with SOX2 in NPCs. Forced expression of BRN2 in ESCs led to functional recruitment of SOX2 to a subset of NPC-specific targets and to precocious differentiation toward a neural-like state. Further analysis of the bound sequences revealed differences in the distances of SOX and POU peaks in the two cell types and identified motifs for additional transcription factors. Together, these data suggest that SOX2 controls a larger network of genes than previously anticipated through binding of distal enhancers and that transitions in POU partner factors may control tissue-specific transcriptional programs. Our findings have important implications for understanding lineage specification and somatic cell reprogramming, where SOX2, OCT4, and BRN2 have been shown to be key factors