Pharmaceutical Composition

Abstract

The invention provides pharmaceutical compositions comprising short single stranded oligonucleotides, of length of between 8 and 17 nucleobases which are complementary to human microRNAs. The short oligonucleotides are particularly effective at alleviating miRNA repression in vivo. It is found that the incorporation of high affinity nucleotide analogues into the oligonucleotides results in highly effective anti-microRNA molecules which appear to function via the formation of almost irreversible duplexes with the miRNA target, rather than RNA cleavage based mechanisms, such as mechanisms associated with RNaseH or RISC.

1 . A pharmaceutical composition comprising a single stranded oligonucleotide, or a conjugate of said oligonucleotide, having a length of between 8 and 17 nucleobase units, and a pharmaceutically acceptable diluent, carrier, or adjuvant; wherein at least one of the nucleobase units of the single stranded oligonucleotide is a Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) nucleobase unit, and wherein the single stranded oligonucleotide is complementary to a human microRNA sequence. 
     
     
         2 .- 95 . (canceled)