The employment of molecular tools with nucleic acid binding ability to specifically control crucial cellular functions represents an important scientific area at the border between biochemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry. In this review we describe several molecular systems of natural or artificial origin, which are able to bind polyriboadenylic acid (poly(rA)) both in its single-stranded or structured forms. Due to the fundamental role played by the poly(rA) tail in the maturation and stability of mRNA, as well as in the initiation of the translation process, compounds able to bind this RNA tract, influencing the mRNA fate, are of special interest for developing innovative biomedical strategies mainly in the field of anticancer therapy.
Keywords: RNA; nucleopeptides; poly(rA) binders; self-structures.