In silico designing of siRNA Molecule

RNA interference (RNAi) is one of the finest technologies to be developed in the functional genomics to determine the role of genes. The phenomenon of RNAi was first reported by Napoli and Jorgenson in 1990. It was then used by Fire and Mello in 1997 for functional genomics studies involving the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans which reveals that dsRNA to be injected containing both sense and antisense RNA could specifically target the endogenous RNA before translation resulting in genetic interference (Fire et al, 1998). In 1999, certainly the antisense RNA leading to degradation of the co-suppressed RNA was discovered which may be due to reduction of nucleotide pairs to 25 nucleotides (Hamilton and Baulcombe, 1999). The link between RNAi and small interfering RNA (siRNA) is further proved in Drosophila melanogaster. This leads to the prediction that the short sized RNA activates a ribosomal complex called RNA Induced Silencing Complex (RISC) which binds with the target RNA in RNAi (Hammond et al, 2000).