RNAi experiments in D. melanogaster: solutions to the overlooked problem of off-targets shared by independent dsRNAs.

ABSTRACT: RNAi technology is widely used to downregulate specific gene products. Investigating the phenotype induced by downregulation of gene products provides essential information about the function of the specific gene of interest. When RNAi is applied in Drosophila melanogaster or Caenorhabditis elegans, often large dsRNAs are used. One of the drawbacks of RNAi technology is that unwanted gene products with sequence similarity to the gene of interest can be down regulated too. To verify the outcome of an RNAi experiment and to avoid these unwanted off-target effects, an additional non-overlapping dsRNA can be used to down-regulate the same gene. However it has never been tested whether this approach is sufficient to reduce the risk of off-targets. We created a novel tool to analyse the occurren

SUBMITTER: Seinen E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2948504 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature