Epigenetic regulation of gene expression is a heritable change in gene expression that cannot be explained by changes in gene sequence. It can result in the repression or activation of gene expression and is therefore referred to as gene silencing or gene activation respectively. Until the end of the 1980s, only modifications of DNA or protein that lead to transcriptional repression or activati...

With the ongoing task of identifying and characterizing genes in the human genome, there is a great demand for tools to study these genes. Today, reverse genetics is the most effective way to explore gene function. This involves suppression of the gene of interest by a set of manipulation techniques. In addition to this, many conditions like viral infections, cancers and cardio-vascular disease...

Overexpression of chimeric transgenes in plants can trigger post-transcriptional gene silencing that is dependent on epigenetic information and physiological conditions. The current view is that unproductive RNA serves as a crucial signal for gene silencing, although direct evidence is lacking for this theory. A signalling cascade then leads to strongly enhanced turnover of all RNAs that share ...

genic bacterium notorious for its ability to redirect the plant metabolism to meet the pathogen’s gourmandise. This is achieved by the stable genetic modification of the host plant after integration of the bacterial T-DNA into the plant genome, a unique example of interkingdom DNA transfer. The T-DNA stems from the bacterial tumor-inducing (Ti) plasmid and travels as a single-stranded molecule ...

Gene expression is regulated at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. Therefore, in order to achieve a high level of silencing, which includes minimizing any residual expression of a target gene, suppression at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels is required. In this study, we describe a new method for highly efficient gene silencing that combines zinc finger...

Abbreviations: attE: attacin E gene ELISA: Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay gusA: β-glucuronidase gene GUS: glucuronidase nos: nopaline synthase gene nptII: neomycin phosphotransferase II gene NPTII: neomycin phosphotransferase II protein PCR: polymerase chain reaction PTGS: post-transcriptional gene silencing RNA: ribonucleic acid RT-PCR: reverse transcription PCR T-DNA: transfer DNA TGS: tra...

RNA-mediated virus resistance has recently been shown to be the result of post-transcriptional transgene silencing in transgenic plants. This study was undertaken to characterize the effect of transgene length and nontarget DNA sequences on RNA-mediated tospovirus resistance in transgenic plants. Transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana plants were generated to express different regions of the nucleoca...