..................................................................................................................................64 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................65 MATERIAL AND METHODS ...........................................................................................................

Modified 8–17 DNAzymes that can induce target gene silencing in cells were developed based on the X-ray crystal structure of DNAzyme and modifications used designing antisense oligonucleotides.

Transgenes inserted into the plant genome can become inactive (gene silencing) or result in silencing of homologous cellular genes [homology-dependent gene silencing (HDG silencing)]. In an earlier study we reported HDG silencing of chalcone synthase (CHS) in Arabidopsis. This study concerns genetic revertants of one of the CHS HDG-silencing transgenic homozygotes. Two monogenic recessive trans...

Background: RNA interference (RNAi) is a phenomenon uses double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) to specifically inhibit gene expression. The non-specific silencing caused by interferon response to dsRNA in mammalian cells limits the potential of utilizing RNAi to study gene function. Duplexes of 21-nucleotide short interfering dsRNA (siRNA) inhibit gene expression by RNAi. In some organisms, siRNA can als...

Promoter methylation is one of the main epigenetic mechanisms that lead to the inactivation of tumor suppressor genes during carcinogenesis. Due to the reversible nature of DNA methylation, many studies have been performed to correct theses epigenetic defects by inhibiting DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs). In this case novel therapeutics especially siRNA oligonucleotides have been used to specifi...

Promoter methylation is one of the main epigenetic mechanisms that lead to the inactivation of tumor suppressor genes during carcinogenesis. Due to the reversible nature of DNA methylation, many studies have been performed to correct theses epigenetic defects by inhibiting DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs). In this case novel therapeutics especially siRNA oligonucleotides have been used to specifi...

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is one of the reverse genetics tools for analysis of gene function that uses viral vectors carrying a target gene fragment to produce dsRNA which trigger RNA-mediated gene silencing. There are a number of viruses which have been modified to silence the gene of interest effectively with a sequence-specific manner. Therefore, different types of methodologies ha...