The Coronoavirus pandemic lead to the milestone in the research of synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA)-based therapies, which was achieved with the development and approval of the first mRNA-based drug: the COVID19 vaccines. For almost the last three decades, the application of synthetic mRNA-based therapeutics was extensively studied, not only as a vaccine, but also in other research field as regenerative medicine to prevent and treat diseases. The ability to use synthetic mRNAs to express any desired protein under physiological conditions, without any mutagenic risk, offers immense new possibilities in the field of protein replacement therapies. Thanks to major technological innovations as the incorporation of modified nucleotides significantly increased mRNAs stability and expression efficiency as well as reduced their immune activation. Moreover, encapsulating synthetic mRNA into proper vehicles, highly increase mRNA stability, by protecting it from RNAse degradation and enables an efficient uptake into the cell, where it is translated into the target protein.
The lack proteins based due to degenerative processes or (genetic) diseases might lead to the damage and the loss of a proper function of tissues. The extracellular matrix protein elastin forming elastic fibres is responsible for the elasticity of flexible tissues as the lung, vessels and the skin. Although Elastin is a stable protein, aging, diseases, and environmental factors lead to a non-reversible loss of elastic fibers and an impaired tissue function. The replacement of damaged fibers could be achieved by the de novo synthesis of elastin using synthetic mRNA coding for Tropoelastin (TE) mRNA; the new and highly innovative and promising drug in the Elastrin Therapheutic´s pipeline for tissue engineering.