Question

Craig Mellow investigated RNA interference by injecting antisense and double-stranded RNAs into C. elegans. If the antisense and double-stranded RNAs were very similar, but not identical, to C. elegans mex-3, what would be the results of their experiment

Answer 1

It is required that the seed region of the processed dsRNA molecule bind to the mRNA of mex-3 in order to inhibit its translation

Step-by-step explanation:

Double-stranded RNAs are small interfering non-coding RNAs (about 20 nucleotides in length) that, after processing, can bind by complementary base pairing to RNAs and thus inhibit protein translation by a mechanism referred to as 'RNA interference' (RNAi). The base pairing is not always perfect; however, the guide strands of dsRNAs can conserve their ability to inhibit the translation if the complementarity is enough good to match target RNA sequences. The critical region in the dsRNA that is required to bind target RNAs is known as seed region, and consists of 6 to 8 nucleotides in length.