Abstract
RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process by which double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) induces sequence-specific gene silencing by targeting mRNA for degradation. As a tool for knocking down the expression of individual genes posttranscriptionally, RNAi has been widely used to study the cellular function of genes. In this chapter, I describe procedures for using gene-specific, synthetic, short interfering RNA (siRNA) to induce gene silencing in mammalian cells. Protocols for using lipid-based transfection reagents and electroporation techniques are provided. Potential challenges and problems associated with the siRNA technology are also discussed.
References
Fire A, Xu S, Montgomery MK, Kostas SA, Driver SE et al (1998) Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature 391:806–811
Sontheimer EJ (2005) Assembly and function of RNA silencing complexes. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 6:127–138
Elbashir SM, Harborth J, Lendeckel W, Yalcin A, Weber K et al (2001) Duplexes of 21-nucleotide RNAs mediate RNA interference in cultured mammalian cells. Nature 411:494–498
Micura R (2002) Small interfering RNAs and their chemical synthesis. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 41:2265–2269
JY Y, DeRuiter SL, Turner DL (2002) RNA interference by expression of short-interfering RNAs and hairpin RNAs in mammalian cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 99:6047–6052
Brummelkamp TR, Bernards R, Agami R (2002) A system for stable expression of short interfering RNAs in mammalian cells. Science 296:550–553
Birmingham A, Anderson E, Sullivan K, Reynolds A, Boese Q et al (2007) A protocol for designing siRNAs with high functionality and specificity. Nat Protoc 2:2068–2078
Molecule of the month. Y-27632 Drug News Perspect 14:45
Park YK, Park SM, Choi YC, Lee D, Won M et al (2008) AsiDesigner: exon-based siRNA design server considering alternative splicing. Nucleic Acids Res 36:W97–W103
Guan H, Yang K (2008) RNA isolation and real-time quantitative RT-PCR. Methods Mol Biol 456:259–270
Tsai SJ, Wiltbank MC (1996) Quantification of mRNA using competitive RT-PCR with standard-curve methodology. BioTechniques 21:862–866
Schmittgen TD, Livak KJ (2008) Analyzing real-time PCR data by the comparative C(T) method. Nat Protoc 3:1101–1108
Dykxhoorn DM, Novina CD, Sharp PA (2003) Killing the messenger: short RNAs that silence gene expression. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 4:457–467
Gilmore IR, Fox SP, Hollins AJ, Akhtar S (2006) Delivery strategies for siRNA-mediated gene silencing. Curr Drug Deliv 3:147–155
Dorsett Y, Tuschl T (2004) siRNAs: applications in functional genomics and potential as therapeutics. Nat Rev Drug Discov 3:318–329
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by NIH/NCI grants CA169281 and CA191923 to H.H.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Han, H. (2018). RNA Interference to Knock Down Gene Expression. In: DiStefano, J. (eds) Disease Gene Identification. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1706. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7471-9_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7471-9_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-7470-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-7471-9
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols