Serum stability enhancement of siRNA caused by peptide conjugation at 3'-terminus of sense strand

RNA interference has been widely used for gene therapy of various infectious diseases and malignant tumors.However, its poor stability in serum has limited further clinic application. Here, we found that stability of siRNA in serumenhanced obviously when 3'-terminus of sense strand (siRNA-pS) was conjugated with peptide, while same conjugation at 3'-terminus of antisense strand brought no such effects. And it was also found that only the peptide residue in siRNA-pS could be cut off by RNase A. All these results indicated that nucleases in serum prefer to invade siRNA duplex through the 3'-end of sense strand.