Using RNA interference to modulate gene expression

Abstract RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as one of the most promising technologies among those directed towards regulating gene expression in animals. The presence of a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) in eukaryotic cells triggers this post-transcriptional gene-silencing mechanism, leading to a sequence-specific degradation of the target mRNA. RNAi offers unique advantage over other technologies due to its ability both to amplify catalytically the initial trigger signal to silence the target RNA sequence and to systemically spread the silencing signal to other cells. Various strategies currently being developed to employ RNAi technology for rapid functional genomic analyses and therapeutic applications will be reviewed in this paper.