Inhibition of cytokine production

Abstract

The invention provides a ds-DNA oligomer which has from 25 to 150 base pairs, preferably 25 to 50 base pairs, and comprises the palindrome-containing sequence (one strand only shown) of formula (1): 5′B1. . . xN . . . B23′  (1) wherein B1 is ttgg or ccaa and B2 is correspondingly ccaa or ttgg and xN represents from 1 to 30 native nucleotides of substantially the native promoter sequence, together with the complementary strand, the oligomer being modified to make it resistant to degradation and denaturing in vivo. This oligomer or a vector carrying the palindrome-containing sequence (but not necessarily with the modification and not limited by any upper limit on the length of the oligomer sequence) can be used to inhibit transcription of the cytokine gene in vivo and is therefore useful in the therapy of diseases associated with undesired or excess production of cytokine.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.