Silencer Select siRNAs were developed to give the most consistent gene silencing and gene function data available to biomedical researchers performing ribonucleic acid interference (RNAi) experiments
Applied Biosystems announces the availability of a new line of synthetic short interfering ribonucleic acids (siRNA).
RNAi is a naturally occurring biological mechanism within cells that selectively silences and regulates specific genes.
Utilising siRNAs to induce RNAi is widely used as a research tool to silence - or turn off - the expression of individual genes to study their function in various biological pathways.
Another area of application being studied is the use of RNAi as a therapeutic agent.
Since many diseases are caused by the abnormal activity of genes, the ability to selectively silence them using siRNAs has the potential to provide a new way to treat a wide range of illnesses including cancer, age-related macular degeneration and Alzheimer's.
Silencer Select siRNAs help biomedical researchers by providing a set of pre-designed siRNAs that have been developed using a new proprietary siRNA design algorithm to more reliably silence specific genes and chemical modifications to enhance the specificity of the silencing effect.
This combination of enhanced design and chemical modification results in consistent gene silencing at lower siRNA concentrations and with fewer off-target effects.
Off-target effects are results that inadvertently affect expression of genes other than the intended target.
The siRNA design process is a critical step in successful gene silencing.
Utilising computer algorithms to design siRNAs has been shown to produce more reliable siRNAs than the time intensive process of manually selecting siRNAs for target gene sequences.
Applied Biosystems's proprietary siRNA design algorithm was developed by Applied Biosystems' Ambion business by analysing performance data from thousands of siRNA experiments to better understand the link between a siRNA's sequence, target location, thermodynamic properties and its silencing efficiency.
This new siRNA design process yields effective siRNAs and ensures that target silencing is consistently achieved, as measured by TaqMan gene expression assays.
To validate the performance of the Silencer Select siRNAs, Applied Biosystems tested hundreds of Silencer Select siRNAs for silencing efficiency using cell-based assays.
As part of this study, Applied Biosystems compared the performance of 94 different siRNAs from three different vendors targeting seven different, well characterised genes.
The results showed that pre-designed Silencer Select siRNAs effectively elicited the expected, silenced phenotypes 92 per cent of the time whereas the siRNAs from other vendors elicited the expected result in only 57-72 percent of the siRNAs tested1.
This improved efficacy is expected to give researchers greater confidence in the Silencer Select siRNAs and generate reliable data that can be used to understand gene function.
"RNAi research technologies are greatly accelerating the functional characterisation of disease-relevant genes, thereby providing a critical drug discovery and development tool for a growing number of biomedical and pharmaceutical laboratories," said Peter Dansky, president for Applied Biosystems' molecular and cell biology consumables division.
"The Silencer Select siRNAs and our complete line of products for the RNAi workflow provide best-in-class solutions that are enabling researchers to advance the performance of gene silencing experiments and generate high-quality gene function and target validation data." Applied Biosystems is a global leader in the development and commercialisation of instrument-based systems, consumables, software, and services for the life science market and offers one of the industry's most comprehensive lines of products for handling, preserving, isolating, detecting and measuring RNA.
Applied Biosystems' complete line of real-time PCR products complements the new Silencer Select siRNAs in the RNAi workflow.
Silencer Select siRNAs extend Applied Biosystems's existing line of Silencer siRNAs which provide several highly effective siRNAs for each human, mouse, and rat gene (more than 200,000 siRNAs); siRNA libraries, including genome-wide siRNA libraries; and custom siRNA libraries.
These products are complemented by the company's line of TaqMan-based assays for quantitative, real-time PCR gene expression studies.
Assays are available for the human, mouse, and rat genomes.
