Two ready-to-use microRNA (miRNA) assay technologies are being introduced by Qiagen this month to simplify and standardise gene-regulation research
The two new products - miScript miRNA Mimics and miScript miRNA Inhibitors - are ready-to-transfect for use in gene regulation and cellular pathway analysis.
By directing a protein complex to bind to specific messenger RNA (mRNA), miRNAs act to fine-tune cellular gene expression.
Research has shown that aberrant expression of several miRNAs is associated with severe diseases such as cancer and heart disease.
Qiagen has now developed standardized tools and ready-to-use technologies that simplify the analysis of miRNA function and which can be customized to researchers' individual requirements.
"Qiagen has designed these new, synthetic miRNA mimics and miRNA inhibitors to most optimally meet all of the specialized requirements in this exciting new area of research and to create tools that greatly enhance the productivity of gene-regulation research," said Constanze Kindler, global product manager at Qiagen.
"Scientists can now easily carry out functional analyses on miRNAs, which have potential links to many other promising areas of research".
miScript miRNA Mimics are synthetic RNA oligonucleotides that function like mature endogenous miRNA molecules when transfected in to mammalian cells.
These can be used to artificially up regulate the level of any miRNA in a cell.
In contrast, miScript miRNA Inhibitors which are synthetic chemically modified RNA oligonucleotides inhibit endogenously expressed miRNAs.
miRNA Inhibitors effectively lower the endogenous levels of miRNA in cells enabling loss-of-function studies.
Qiagen supplies miScript miRNA Mimics and miScript miRNA Inhibitors in highly flexible formats - from single tubes to 96- or 384-well plates - as well as in different scales: 1 and 5nmol for in-vitro use and 20nmol for animal studies.
miScript miRNA Mimics and miScript miRNA Inhibitors are available for every human, mouse and rat miRNA in the current version of the miRBase via Qiagen's web portal, GeneGlobe.
If a miRNA is not yet available in miRBase or is proprietary, a mimic or inhibitor can be custom-designed and ordered through GeneGlobe by entering the mature miRNA sequence.
In addition, for the first time, Qiagen is offering a custom-designed primer assay - the miScript Primer Assay - for the detection of miRNAs not registered in miRBase.
