Patent ID: 8895719

Claim:
A pharmaceutical composition comprising (a) an effective amount of one or more oligonucleotides of 10 to 50 nucleobases in length which are sufficiently complementary to a mitochondrial chimeric RNA molecule comprising (i) a sense 16S mitochondrial ribosomal RNA covalently linked at its 5′ end to the 3′ end of an inverted repeat sequence which is a segment of an antisense 16S mitochondrial ribosomal RNA; or (ii) the antisense 16S mitochondrial ribosomal RNA, covalently linked at its 5′ end to the 3′ end of an inverted repeat sequence which is a segment of the sense 16S mitochondrial ribosomal RNA, to be able to hybridize with the mitochondrial chimeric RNA molecule to form a stable duplex and wherein said one or more oligonucleotides comprise at least one alternate internucleoside linkage; and (b) a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier or diluent.