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Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 

Off-target effects by siRNA can induce toxic phenotype.

Although recent microarray studies have provided evidence of RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated off-target gene modulation, little is known about whether these changes induce observable phenotypic outcomes. Here we show that a fraction of randomly selected small inhibitory RNAs (siRNAs) can induce changes in cell viability in a target-independent fashion. The observed toxicity requires an intact RNAi pathway and can be eliminated by the addition of chemical modifications that reduce off-target effects. Furthermore, an analysis of toxic and nontoxic duplexes identifies a strong correlation between the toxicity and the presence of a 4-base-pair motif (UGGC) in the RISC-entering strand of toxic siRNA. This article provides further evidence of siRNA-induced off-target effects generating a measurable phenotype and also provides an example of how such undesirable phenotypes can be mitigated by addition of chemical modifications to the siRNA.[1]

References

  1. Off-target effects by siRNA can induce toxic phenotype. Fedorov, Y., Anderson, E.M., Birmingham, A., Reynolds, A., Karpilow, J., Robinson, K., Leake, D., Marshall, W.S., Khvorova, A. RNA (2006) [Pubmed]
 
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