HLBpanagene Publishes Core AOC Payload "PNA Research Results" in International Journal

HLBpanagene has published its research results on peptide nucleic acid (PNA), a core technology in its development strategy for antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates (AOC), in an international academic journal.

HLBpanagene announced on the 11th that the research results on its proprietary gamma-aminocarboxylic acid (γ-ACA)-modified PNA have been published in the SCI(E)-indexed international journal "Current Issues in Molecular Biology." The γ-ACA modification is a technology that structurally improves the PNA backbone to enhance binding affinity to target genes and increase inhibition efficiency.

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The paper presents research results showing that, by applying the γ-ACA modification technology that structurally improves the conventional PNA backbone, the oncogenic microRNA miR-221-3p, which promotes cancer cell proliferation in lung cancer cell lines, was effectively inhibited.

The research team demonstrated that, after treatment with γ-ACA PNA, the expression of miR-221-3p was markedly reduced, while the expression of the tumor suppressor gene CDKN1B (p27) was restored. In addition, compared with conventional PNA conjugated with commonly used cell-penetrating peptides (CPP), γ-ACA-modified PNA alone showed a stronger inhibitory effect. This experimentally demonstrates that the design of the PNA backbone itself can determine therapeutic efficacy, rather than merely improving the delivery method.

This achievement is evaluated as research that strengthens the scientific basis of HLBpanagene's ongoing PNA-based AOC strategy. In the structural design of AOC, where antibodies are responsible for delivery to target cells, actual therapeutic efficacy is determined by the performance of the payload. The study demonstrated that the design of the PNA backbone itself can determine this efficacy.

Phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PMO), which has been used as an AOC payload, has the advantage of accumulated clinical application experience, but its chemically fixed structure has limited potential for performance enhancement. In contrast, PNA not only offers high stability and strong target binding affinity, but also allows backbone structures to be designed and optimized for specific purposes, making it a promising alternative capable of overcoming such structural constraints.

HLBpanagene has already accumulated commercial success in the diagnostic field based on the structural strengths of PNA and is extending this to an AOC payload to develop it into a therapeutic platform. Building on this γ-ACA modification research, the company plans to fully accelerate the advancement of PNA backbone design and gradually enhance the overall efficacy of its AOC platform.

Jang Ingeun, CEO of HLBpanagene, said, "This achievement is an important result that has internationally and academically demonstrated that our accumulated PNA modification technologies can be translated into therapeutic efficacy, and it confirms that PNA can evolve from a simple nucleic acid material into a platform-type payload whose performance can be continuously enhanced," adding, "In the AOC field, which is attracting attention as a next-generation modality following ADC, we will build a differentiated AOC platform by combining our antibody delivery technology with our PNA design capabilities."

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