title: Synthetic siRNAs effectively target cystein protease 12 and α-actinin transcripts in Trichomonas vaginalis.
abstract: The flagellated protozoan Trichomonas vaginalis (T. vaginalis) causes trichomoniasis, a reproductive tract infection, in humans. Trichomoniasis is the most common non-viral sexually transmitted disease worldwide. In addition to direct consequences such as infertility and abortion, there are indications that trichomoniasis favours development of prostate cancer and it has also been associated with increased risk of spreading human immunodeficiency virus and papillomavirus infections. Reports from around the world show that the rate of drug resistance in T. vaginalis is increasing, and therefore new therapeutic approaches have to be developed. Studying molecular biology of T. vaginalis will be quite helpful in identifying new drugable targets. RNAi is a powerful technique which allows biologist to specifically target gene products (i.e. mRNA) helping them in unravelling gene functions and biology of systems. However, due to lack of some parts of the required intrinsic RNAi machinery, the RNAi system is not functional in all orders of life. Here, by using synthetic siRNAs targeting two genes, i.e. α-actinin and cystein protease 12 (cp12), we demonstrate T. vaginalis cells are amenable to RNAi experiments conducted by extrinsic siRNAs. Electroporation of siRNAs targeting α-actinin or cp12 into T. vaginalis cells resulted in, respectively, 48-67% and 33-72% downregulation of the cognate transcripts compared to the T. vaginalis cells received siRNAs targeting GL2 luciferase as a control. This finding is helpful in that it demonstrates the potential of using extrinsically induced RNAi in studies on molecular biology of T. vaginalis such as those aiming at identifying new drug targets.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Roya
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ravaee
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Parimah
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ebadi
authors.affiliation: Basic Sciences in Infectious Diseases Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Gholamreza
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hatam
authors.affiliation: Department of Parasitology, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Arghavan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vafafar
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran; Department of Basic Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. Electronic address: mgseno@um.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Mohammad Mahdi
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Ghahramani Seno
mesh_terms: D000185:Actinin / Q000235:genetics*; D057056:Cysteine Proteases / Q000235:genetics*; D015536:Down-Regulation; D018274:Electroporation; D055785:Gene Knockdown Techniques; D006801:Humans; D034622:RNA Interference; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000494:pharmacology; D014162:Transfection; D014246:Trichomonas vaginalis / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D000185:Actinin; D057056:Cysteine Proteases
keywords: RNAi; Trichomonas vaginalis; cp12; siRNA; α-Actinin