TITLE:
Selection of highly efficient small interference RNA (SiRNA) targeting mammalian genes
AUTHORS:
Ali El-lakkani, Wissam H. Abd Elgawad, Eman A. Sayed
KEYWORDS:
RNAi; SiRNA; SiRNA Design
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biophysical Chemistry,
Vol.4 No.2,
May
24,
2013
ABSTRACT:
RNAi is the method of
silencing the expression of targeted genes.
RNAi applications include gene function analysis and target validation.
Designing highly efficient small interference
RNA (siRNA) sequence with maximum target specificity for mammalian RNAi
is one of important topics in recent years. In this work, a statistical
analysis of the information for a large number (3734) of siRNA presented in the
database available on the internet is done.
This is to improve the design of efficient siRNA molecules. The (3734)
siRNAs are classified according to their efficiency
to three groups (high efficient, moderate efficient and low efficient).
Thirteen properties (positional and thermodynamics) are identified in the high
efficient group in the primary statistical study. In the final statistical
study, the average weight of each identified
property is calculated. A very good linear correlation was found between
the average percentage efficiency and the
weighted score of siRNA properties. It is found that the most important
feature of highly efficient siRNA is the difference in binding energy between
the 5’ end and the 3’ end of the anti-sense strand. The (RISC) activation step
is a critical step in RNAi process where the efficiency of this process depends
on the instability of the 5’ end of the anti-sense strand.