RNA interference (RNAi) technology is a tool for lost-of-function (knockdown / silencing) studies in mammalian cells without making knock-out germline cells. Originally, double-strand short RNAs were found in vivo, inhibiting gene expression. The mechanism is a series of enzymatic reactions mediated by short RNAs that complementary in sequence to the silenced targets, leading to mRNA degradation or translational repression. RNAi knockdown can be introduced by synthetic short double-strand RNA (siRNA) or vector expressed stem-hairpin RNA (shRNA) which was further processed by Dicer enzyme to producing double-strand short RNAs. Another category of RNAi found in vivo is micro-RNA (miRNA) which has similar knockdown mechanism. Native or artificial miRNA can be processed from pre-micro RNA that expressed via vectors. Chemical synthesized double stranded RNA (siRNA) is only for transient silencing effect. In contrast, vector expressed RNAi can provide a long term effect by stable selection.
Vector expressed RNAi for gene silencing provides an alternative, convenient method to functional studies in both animal and cell line models. Variety RNAi vectors are commercially available now in the market.
GenTarget provides more advanced, easier and unique cloning kits for making both regular shRNA expression vector and inducible lentiviral shRNA expression vectors. Please click the following products for details.
Expression lentiviral particles->
