Abstract Medulloblastoma is a central nervous system tumor that develops through various genetic, epigenetic, and non-coding (nc) RNA-related mechanisms, but the roles played by ncRNAs, particularly circular RNAs (circRNAs), remain poorly defined. CircRNAs are increasingly recognized as stable noncoding RNA therapeutic targets in many cancers, little known about their function, subtype specific...

BACKGROUND The group I intron, a ribozyme that catalyzes its own splicing reactions in the absence of proteins in vitro, is a potential target for rational engineering and attracted our interest due to its potential utility in gene repair using trans-splicing. However, the ribozyme activity of a group I intron appears to be facilitated by RNA chaperones in vivo; therefore, the efficiency of sel...

Atherosclerotic plaque destabilization and rupture leads to acute coronary syndromes which cause serious damage to human health worldwide. However, there is currently a lack of efficient therapeutic methods. Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) has been suggested to be involved in the development of atherosclerotic plaques and serves as a therapeutic target. The present study was performed to d...

The purpose of this study was to determine if neurons within the NTS that express the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) play a role in aldosterone stimulation of salt intake. Adult WKY rats received microinjections into the NTS of a short-hairpin RNA for the MR, to sitespecifically reduce levels of the MR by RNA interference (shRNA; n=9), or scrambled RNA as a control (scRNA; n=8). After injectio...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) covalently closed circular (CCC) DNA is the source of HBV transcripts and persistence in chronically infected patients. The novel aspect of this study was to determine the effect of RNA interference (RNAi) on HBV CCC DNA when administered prior to establishment of HBV replication or during chronic HBV infection. HBV replication was initiated in HepG2 cells by transductio...

Feline Leukemia virus (FeLV) is a pathogenic retrovirus endemic among domestic cats, remaining a serious disease since its discovery in 1964. RNA interference (RNAi) is a process in which double-stranded RNA induces the post-transcriptional sequencespecific degradation of homologous messenger RNA. At present, RNAi technology is regarded as a potential strategy for the treatment of various disea...

Clec4a has been reported to be an immune suppressor of dendritic cells (DCs), but its potential role in cancer therapy remains to be elucidated. The present study investigated whether downregulating the expression of Clec4a via skin delivery of small hairpin RNA (shRNA) using a gene gun produced stronger host immunity and inhibited tumor progression in animal models. Administration of Clec4a2 s...