title: [RNA interference in functional genomics and medical research].
abstract: RNA interference (RNAi) is a post-transcriptional gene silencing process by targeting mRNA for degradation in a sequence-specific manner. This powerful platform has enormous potential in functional genomics and medical research. As a tool to knock out expression of specific genes in a variety of organisms, RNAi was used to investigate gene function in a high throughput fashion. Highly conserved in evolution RNAi appears to have evolved as a cellular defense mechanism in plants and animals to suppress viral infection, transposon jumping and endogenous aberrant genes. Exploiting the natural mechanism, the researchers can shut down disease-causing genes and develop novel therapeutics against infection, tumor and other disease.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China. zl_you@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Zili
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: You
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Dezhong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yao
mesh_terms: D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D020868:Gene Silencing; D023281:Genomics; D034622:RNA Interference; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D034743:RNA-Induced Silencing Complex
chemical_list: D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D034743:RNA-Induced Silencing Complex