What is RNAi?A highly elegant and powerful cellular surveillance mechanismRNAi is a naturally occurring ‘catalytic’ gene regulation system, that probably first evolved to control gene expression, especially for developmental transitions, and subsequently duplicated to take on further roles in defence against viruses and transposons. RNAi is a cellular response to the presence of double stranded RNA (ds RNA) molecules. Ds RNA is recognised and cleaved into small interfering RNAs (siRNA), which are then used as ‘guides’ to find and direct the cleavage of RNAs with homologous nucleotide sequences. By introducing dsRNAs containing desired sequences into cells or organisms, the RNAi pathway can be harnessed to silence essentially any target gene of interest with maximal, tightly controlled specificity. In plants hairpinRNAi is the most effective way of triggering gene silencing.
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