Physiology 3140A Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Small Interfering Rna, Microinjection, Rna Interference

• School: Western University
• Department: Physiology
• Course: Physiology 3140A
• Professor: John Di Guglielmo

Document Summary

Discovered by accident through the microinjection of long double stranded rnas (dsrna) into c. elegans. Complementary mrna found endogenously within the successfully injected cells were now not expressed as proteins. Many eukaryotic cells have endogenous mechanisms to repress mrna translation called the rnai pathway. A number of proteins exist in the rnai pathway that recognize and cleave long dsrna into shorter pieces called short interfering rna (sirna) Then, other proteins use these sirnas to target mrna sequences found in the cytoplasm for degradation. To combat foreign double stranded rna genomes from viruses that have infected our cells. Our genome encodes rna species called micrornas that utilize this same silencing machinery to control what mrnas are being translated as part of genome regulation. Manipulate the use of endogenous rnai pathway by directly introducing sirnas into eukaryotic cells. Addition of long dsrna leads to non-specific silencing of mrnas so to get specific you have to add sirnas instead.