Question

A doctoral student in biology, Esther Mensah, is reviewing primary literature over RNAi interference as part of her literary research for her proposal on decreasing the amount of abnormal white blood cell growth associated with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) using a murine (mouse) model. She is being provided with 10 AML mice courtesy of her mentor. Can you help her out with her proposal

Answer 1

She might study the function of putative oncogenes and/or tumor suppressor genes in AML mice by transfecting small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) which are able to suppress the expression of genes of interest through the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway

Explanations:

The RNA interference (RNAi) pathway is a naturally occurring mechanism which is used in molecular biology laboratories to inhibit the expression of target genes. The RNAi technique consists of delivering small interfering double-stranded RNAs (siRNAs, 18-30 nucleotides in length) into the cells in order to inhibit the translation of genes and/or trigger mRNA degradation, thereby suppressing target gene expression. These siRNAs are specifically designed to bind by complementarity to transcripts of target genes (i.e., mRNAs). In this case, the RNAi pathway can be used to study the function of genes involved in AML pathways (e.g., apoptosis, cell proliferation, etc).