WHAT IS THIS?

February 14, 2005 at 8:51 pm #381

mith

Participant

What is siRNA and RNAi?

February 15, 2005 at 11:28 am #19622

DevGrp

Participant

small interfering RNA (siRNA), RNA interference (RNAi) also called RNA silencing

Its the phenomenom by which introduced double stranded RNA has the effect of silencing expression of any genes encoding mRNAs with similar sequences. It’s probably a viral defence mechanism but is useful because you can introduce an siRNA molecule , or siRNA producing vector into a cell and switch off down expression of the genes you wish to study.

In our hands in plants its more of a turn down rather than a switch off, so we were able to study the effects of reduced gene expression when a complete knockout would have been lethal.

Hope this helps

February 15, 2005 at 8:24 pm #19634

mith

Participant

Very interesting, where do you work if you don’t mind my asking?

February 16, 2005 at 9:32 am #19646

DevGrp

Participant

http://www.cnap.org.uk/

February 18, 2005 at 4:56 am #19684

2810712

Participant

How does this happen?

It’s probably a viral defence mechanism but is useful because you can introduce an siRNA molecule , or siRNA producing vector into a cell and switch off down expression of the genes you wish to study.
And are you saying that this is antiviral?

hrushikesh

February 18, 2005 at 10:09 am #19687

DevGrp

Participant

Yep appears to be a cellular antiviral mechanism

Pubmed:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer … s=12554663

and reviewed in Trends in Genetics
RNA silencing as a plant immune system against viruses
Olivier Voinnet
Trends in Genetics 17:449 (2001)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o … e9e26026b3

March 27, 2005 at 9:25 am #20889

GreenDog

Participant

Maybe it appears to be an antiviral mechanism, but is probably not, is serves a much more basic function in development.
The phenomenon exists in fungi- called quelling, in plants- PTGS, and in C. Elegans.
Two major participants in the system Dicer (dsRNA endonuclease) and RISC (RNA-Induced Silencing Complex), have roles that affect gene expression, and not only virus response uses.
PTGS – Posttranscriptional gene silencing in plants and ‘quelling’ in fungi are plant-based RNAi mechanisms.

May 7, 2005 at 9:16 am #22217

yykang

Participant

more and more proofs surport that RNAi is a antiviral mechanism in organism. I think the further study should focus on the application for gene therapy and gene function study.

April 19, 2006 at 8:58 pm #46811

TairaKawasaki

Participant

How do you think dsRNA effect on adult neuron.

We have found a strange coincide in Fig.4 on
Cell. 2004 Mar 19;116(6):779-93.
MID:15035981

Please check it by your own eyes.

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