RNA Interference and Cancer

Abstract

RNA interference (RNAi) is an evolutionally conserved gene silencing mechanism present in a variety of eukaryotic species. RNAi uses short double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) to trigger degradation or translation repression of homologous RNA targets in a sequence-specific manner. Over the past decade RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as a natural mechanism for silencing gene expression. This system can be induced effectively in vitro and in vivo by direct application of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), or by expression of short hairpin RNA (shRNA) with non-viral and viral vectors. This review briefly describes the molecular principles underlying of RNAi phenomenon and discuss the main technical issues regarding optimization of RNAi experimental design.

Keywords: RNA interference (RNAi), double strand RNA (dsRNA), short hairpin RNA (shRNA)