title: A novel measurement of allele discrimination for assessment of allele-specific silencing by RNA interference.
abstract: Allele-specific silencing by RNA interference (ASP-RNAi) is an atypical RNAi that is capable of discriminating target alleles from non-target alleles, and may be therapeutically useful for specific inhibition of disease-causing alleles without affecting their corresponding normal alleles. However, it is difficult to design and select small interfering RNA (siRNAs) that confer ASP-RNAi. A major problem is that there are few appropriate measures in determining optimal allele-specific siRNAs. Here we show two novel formulas for calculating a new measure of allele-discrimination, named "ASP-score". The formulas and ASP-score allow for an unbiased determination of optimal siRNAs, and may contribute to characterizing such allele-specific siRNAs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Pharmacology, National Institute of Neuroscience, NCNP, 4-1-1 Ogawahigashi, Kodaira, Tokyo, 187-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Masaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: Hirohiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hohjoh
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D001483:Base Sequence; D020868:Gene Silencing / Q000502:physiology*; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D008156:Luciferases; D008957:Models, Genetic; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D034622:RNA Interference / Q000502:physiology*; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D008156:Luciferases