New RNA libraries can selectively inactivate h...( Researchers have produced vast librarie...)

The libraries will be made widely available to laboratories studying human biology and disease. The researchers are optimistic that the libraries will become a powerful research tool for gene analysis and discovery.

Two independent research groups reported on their respective RNA interference (RNAi) libraries in the March 25, 2004, issue of the journal Nature. Gregory Hannon of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Stephen J. Elledge at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital led the first group. The joint lead authors were Patrick Paddison, Jose Silva and Douglas Conklin in Hannon's laboratory. Ren Bernards of The Netherlands Cancer Institute led a second group.

Commenting on the significance of the studies in the journal Nature, Andrew Fraser at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute wrote: "As no single laboratory can specialize in every aspect of gene function, the general availability of these [short hairpin RNA] libraries as a communal resource is a major step forward, harnessing the screening expertise of the entire mammalian-cell research community."

RNA interference is a technique used with much success by researchers to switch off genes in lower organisms, including the fruit fly Drosophila and the roundworm C. elegans. Researchers stumbled upon this powerful tool for gene analysis when they discovered that introduced sequences of double-stranded RNA identical to a target messenger RNA actually triggered degradation of the messenger RNA.

Messenger RNA molecules are the genetic templates for proteins. In constructing proteins, the mRNA template is transcribed from DNA genes and
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Contact: Jim Keeley
keeleyj@hhmi.org
301-215-8858
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
24-Mar-2004