RNA interference (RNAi) is a remarkable endogenous regulatory pathway that can bring about sequence-specific gene silencing. If harnessed effectively, RNAi could result in a potent targeted therapeutic modality with applications ranging from viral diseases to cancer. The major barrier to realizing the full medicinal potential of RNAi is the difficulty of delivering effector molecules, such as s...

In mammalian RNA interference (RNAi), a limited fraction of the short interfering RNA (siRNA) is capable of successful interference, since the efficiency of RNAi depends highly on the siRNA sequence used. Several different algorithms for selecting functional siRNA sequences have been published. To find a robust siRNA selection procedure by integrating these algorithms, we performed validation s...

RNA hairpins are a common type of secondary structures that play a role in every aspect of RNA biochemistry including RNA editing, mRNA stability, localization and translation of transcripts, and in the activation of the RNA interference (RNAi) and microRNA (miRNA) pathways. Participation in these functions often requires restructuring the RNA molecules by the association of single-strand (ss) ...

RNA interference (RNAi) is widely used for functional studies and has been proposed as a potential therapeutic agent. Current RNAi systems are largely efficient, but have limitations including transient effect, the need for viral handling and potential insertional mutations. Here, we describe a simple L1 retrotransposon-based system for the delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) and stable s...

Adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (ADARs) are involved in RNA editing that converts adenosine residues to inosine specifically in double-stranded RNAs. In this study, we investigated the interaction of the RNA editing mechanism with the RNA interference (RNAi) machinery and found that ADAR1 forms a complex with Dicer through direct protein-protein interaction. Most importantly, ADAR1 increases...

The description of the mechanism of RNA interference (RNAi) has generated enormous interest in the biomedical field. A previously unrecognized pathway in which small interfering, 21 to 23 mer, double-stranded RNA (siRNA) mediates sequence-specific degradation of mRNA is becoming one the most useful techniques in cell biology and genetics research. Based on the potency, specificity and physiolog...

RNA interference (RNAi) induced by small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) has recently become a powerful tool to knock-down gene expression in a sequence-specific manner. In addition to chemically made siRNAs, stable expression of siRNA in the form of short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) expressed from an RNA polymerase III (pol III) promoter is now widely used approach for the application of RNAi in mammalian...

RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as a promising technique for gene therapy. However, the safe and long-term expression of small RNA molecules is a major concern for the application of RNAi therapies in vivo. Borna disease virus (BDV), a non-segmented, negative-strand RNA virus, establishes a persistent infection without obvious cytopathic effects. Unique among animal non-retroviral RNA virus...

RNA interference (RNAi) represents a high effective mechanism for specific inhibition of mRNA expression. Besides its potential as a powerful laboratory tool, the RNAi pathway appears to be promising for therapeutic utilization. For development of RNA interference (RNAi)-based therapies, delivery of RNAi-mediating agents to target cells is one of the major obstacles. A novel strategy to overcom...

siDirect (http://design.RNAi.jp/) is a web-based online software system for computing highly effective small interfering RNA (siRNA) sequences with maximum target-specificity for mammalian RNA interference (RNAi). Highly effective siRNA sequences are selected using novel guidelines that were established through an extensive study of the relationship between siRNA sequences and RNAi activity. Ou...