Boden Daniel, Pusch Oliver, Lee Fredrick, Tucker Lynne, Shank Peter R, Ramratnam Bharat
Laboratory of Retrovirology, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Brown Medical School, 4th floor, 55 Claverick Street, Providence, RI 02903, USA.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2003 Sep 1;31(17):5033-8. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkg704.
RNA interference (RNAi) is mediated by small interfering (si) RNAs that target and degrade mRNA in a sequence-specific manner. Cellular expression of siRNA can be achieved by the use of expression cassettes driven by RNA polymerase III (pol III) promoters. Here, we demonstrate that a modified tRNA(met)-derived (MTD) promoter effectively drives the cellular expression of HIV-1-specific siRNA. We observed up to 56% greater inhibition of virus production when the MTD promoter was used to drive the expression of short hairpin (sh) RNA targeting the HIV-1 transactivator protein tat compared to cassettes containing other pol III promoters such as H1, U6+1 and U6+27. We conclude that the MTD promoter is ideally suited to drive intracellular expression of HIV-1 specific siRNA and may serve as an important component of future RNAi vector delivery systems.
RNA干扰(RNAi)由小干扰(si)RNA介导,这些小干扰RNA以序列特异性方式靶向并降解mRNA。通过使用由RNA聚合酶III(pol III)启动子驱动的表达盒,可以实现siRNA的细胞表达。在此,我们证明了一种修饰的源自tRNA(met)的(MTD)启动子能有效地驱动HIV-1特异性siRNA的细胞表达。与含有其他pol III启动子(如H1、U6+1和U6+27)的表达盒相比,当使用MTD启动子驱动靶向HIV-1反式激活蛋白tat的短发夹(sh)RNA的表达时,我们观察到病毒产生的抑制率高达56%。我们得出结论,MTD启动子非常适合驱动HIV-1特异性siRNA的细胞内表达,并可能作为未来RNAi载体递送系统的重要组成部分。