Messenger RNA as a basis for therapeutic agents: structural organization, optimization and application prospects

RNA therapy is an innovative and promising area of modern medicine, offering the possibility of targeted treatment for a wide range of diseases. In particular, mRNA-based vaccines combine the immunological characteristics of live attenuated vaccines (endogenous antigen expression and T-cell induction) with a high safety profile and chemical certainty of inactivated vaccines. The key advantages of the mRNA platform include the absence of risk of integration into the genome of the host cell, rapid metabolic degradation, and high technological flexibility in production, which make it possible to quickly adapt therapeutic agents to new targets. Despite significant advances, especially in the field of vaccines against infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2, the widespread use of mRNA therapy faces a number of fundamental challenges. These include the inherent instability of the molecule, susceptibility to RNases, difficulty of overcoming cellular barriers and potential immunogenicity. To overcome these limitations and increase therapeutic efficacy, it is crucial to further study and optimize the structural organization of the mRNA molecule as well as developing high-precision delivery systems. This review aims to provide a detailed analysis of the structure of the mRNA, its development and production processes.