Expanding RNA silencing approaches by U1 adaptors.

Silent partner: In a recent publication, Gunderson and co-workers described an approach to recruit the abundant U1 snRNP, a splicing subparticle, to the last exon of a pre-mRNA, in a sequence-specific manner. This mediates interaction of the U1-70K protein subunit with poly(A) polymerase, thus blocking polyadenylation and inducing pre-mRNA degradation. This novel promising strategy expands the repertoire of gene-silencing concepts.