GENE

SILENCING

Presented by:
Padmaja Panda
Contents
 Introduction
 Types of gene silencing
-Transcriptional gene silencing
-Post transcriptional gene silencing
 RNA i (RNA Interference) pathway
-Si RNA and Mi RNA
-Mechanism
 Application
 Conclusion
 Previously asked questions
 Bibliography
 Introduction
 Gene silencing is a technique that aims to reduce or eliminate the production of
a protein from it’s corresponding gene.
 It generally describe the “switching off” of a gene by a mechanism other than
genetic modification.
 That is, a gene which would be expressed (“turned on”) under normal
circumstances is switched off by machinery in the cell.
 It occurs when RNA is unable to make a protein during translation.
 Gene silencing is same as gene knock down but is totally different from gene
knock out.
 When genes are knock down ,there expression is reduced , where in contrast
when genes are knocked out, they are completely erased from organism’s
genome and thus have no expression.
 Short history of gene silencing
 1990 Jorgensen:
 To deepen the pigmentation in petunias Introduction of transgenes
homologous to endogenous genes often resulted in plants with both gene
suppressed called co suppression.
 Resulted in degradation of the endogenous and transgene mRNA.
 1995 Guo and Kemphues:
 injection of either antisense or sense RNAs in the germline of C.elegans was
equally effective at silencing at homologous target genes.
 1998 Mello and Fire:
 Extension of above experiments, combination of sense and antisense
RNA(=dsRNA) was 10 times more effective than single strand RNA.
 The discovery of the mechanism of RNA interference by ds RNA by prof.
Andrew Fire and prof. Craig Mello in 1998, gave them the Nobel prize in
2006.

 HOW does it works?

1. This is accomplished by binding a specific strand of RNA to an existing
m-RNA strand.
2. The m-RNA creates a copy of DNA strand.
3. By binding the RNA to the m-RNA, m-RNA is prevented from replicating
that portion of the DNA.
4. Specific genes can be targeted and prevented from replicating in to new
DNA strands.
 Types of Gene silencing
 genes are regulated at either the transcriptional level or post-transcriptional level,
therefore silencing can be induced either at transcriptional level or post-
transcriptional level.
 There are mainly two types of gene silencing
1. Transcriptional gene silencing
2. Post transcriptional gene silencing

Transcriptional gene silencing Post transcriptional gene silencing

Promoter silenced Promoter active

Genes hypermethylated in Genes hyper methylated in coding

promoter region region
Purpose – viral immunity Purpose - viral immunity
 Transcriptional gene silencing
 is the result of histone modifications, creating an
environment of heterochromatin around a gene that
makes it inaccessible to transcriptional machinery (RNA
polymerase, transcription factors, etc.).
 Genomic imprinting:
 genomic imprinting is a genetic phenomenon by which
certain genes are expressed in a parent-of-origin-specific
manner. It is an inheritance process independent of the
classical Mendelian inheritance.
 genomic imprinting have been demonstrated in insects,
mammals and flowering plants.
 Paramutation:
 paramutation is an interaction
between two alleles of a single
locus, resulting in a heritable
change of one allele that is
induced by the other allele.
 Paramutation was first
observed by the effect it had on
the colour of corn kernels in
maize plants.
 Position effect:
 Position effect is the effect on the expression of a gene when its location in
a chromosome is changed, often by translocation. This has been well
described in Drosophila with respect to eye colour and is known as
position effect variegation (PEV).
 RNA Directed DNA Methylation:
 RNA-directed DNA methylation is
an epigenetic process first
elucidated in plants whereby small
double-stranded RNAs (dsRNA's)
are processed to guide methylation
to complementary DNA loci. In the
model plant organism Arabidopsis
thaliana
 Transposon silencing:
 Transposon silencing is a form of
transcriptional gene silencing
targeting transposons.
Transcriptional gene silencing is a
product of histone modification
that prevent the transcription of
that area of DNA.
 The “jumping” of transposon
generates the genomic instability
and cause the extremely
deleterious mutations.
 Transposable element insertion
have been linked to many disease
including haemophilia ,SCID and
predisposition to cancer.
 Transgene silencing:
 Unfortunate insertion of
transgene in to a
transcriptionally inactive part of
genome. When an insertion of
any transgene it does not show
activity as per desire and this is
because of it’s instability.
 The lose of transgene stability is
because of gene silencing.
 E.g. slow fruit softening tomato,
by reducing expression of
polygalactouronase enzyme.
Post transcriptional gene silencing

 The ability of exogenous or sometimes endogenous RNA to supress the

expression of the gene which corresponds to the m-RNA sequence.

 RNA i (RNA interference):

 it is a post transcriptional process triggered by the introduction of double
stranded RNA (ds RNA) which leads to the gene silencing in a sequence
specific manner.
 First evidence came from studies on nematode caenorhabditis elegans. further
analysis in fruit fly drosophila melanogaster.
 It is also known as post transcriptional gene silencing / co suppression and
quelling.
 over view of RNA i:
 During RNA i Double-stranded RNAs cut into short double-stranded RNAs,
s(small) i(interfering) RNAs, by an enzyme called Dicer. These then base pair
to an mRNA through a dsRNA-enzyme complex. This will either lead to
degradation of the mRNA strand
 Highly specific process
 Very potent activity
 So far only been seen in eukaryotes
 Evidence 30% of genome is regulated by RNA I
 RNA i pathway guided by,
 Si RNA (small interfering RNA):
 Small interfering RNAs that have an integral role in the phenomenon of RNA
interference (RNA i), a form of post- transcriptional gene silencing
 RNA i: 21-25 nt fragments, which bind to the complementary portion of the
target mRNA and tag it for degradation
 A single base pair difference
between the Si RNA
template and the target
mRNA is enough to block
the process.
 Each strand of Si RNA has:
 a. 5’-phosphate termini
 b. 3’-hydroxyl termini
 c. 2/3-nucleotide 3’
overhangs
 Mi RNA (micro RNA):
 mi RNA Originate from capped &
polyadenylated full length precursors (pri-miRNA)
 Hairpin precursor ~70 nt (pre-mi RNA) Mature
mi RNA ~22 nt (mi RNA)
 mi RNA originates with SS RNA that forms a
hairpin secondary structure.
 Mi RNA regulates post-transcriptional gene
expression and is often not 100% complementary
to the target.
 And also mi RNA help to regulate gene
expression, particularly during induction of
heterochromatin formation serves to down
regulate genes pre- transcriptionally (RNA
induced transcriptional silencing or RITS) RITS.
 Dicer:
 RNAse III-like dsRNA-specific ribonuclease
• Enzyme involved in the initiation of RNA i.
• It is able to digest dsRNA into uniformly sized small RNAs (si RNA)
 Dicer family proteins are ATP- dependent nucleases.
 RNAse III enzyme acts as a dimer
 Loss of dicer→loss of silencing processing in vitro
 Dicer homologs exist in many organisms including C.elegans, Drosophila, yeast
and humans (Dicer is a conserved protein)
 DICER’s domain:
 Dicer is a ribonuclease (RNAse III family) with 4 distinct domains:
 1) Amino-terminal helicase domain
 2) Dual RNAse III motifs in the carboxyl terminal segment
 3) dsRNA binding domain
 4) PAZ domain (110-130 amino-acid domain present in protein like Argo, Piwi..);it
is thought to be important for protein-protein interaction
 DICER’ s domain:
 RISC (RNA Inducing Silencing Complex):
 RISC is a large (~500-kDa) RNA-multi protein complex, which triggers mRNA
degradation in response to Si RNA
 Unwinding of double- stranded Si RNA by ATP independent helicase.
 The active components of an RISC are endonucleases called argonaute
proteins which cleave the target mRNA strand.
 Steps of the RNA i pathway :
 I. ds RNA is sliced by an ATP-dependent
ribonuclease (Dicer) into short
interfering RNAs (si RNAs).
 duplexes of 21 23 nucleotides bearing
two-nucleotide 3' overhanging ends.
 II. Si RNAs are transferred to a second
enzyme complex, designated RISC for
RNA i -induced silencing complex.
The si RNA guides RISC to the target
mRNA, leading to its destruction.
 the antisense strand of the Si RNA is
perfectly complementary
 RNA i PATHWAY:
 dsRNA are chopped into short
interfering RNAs (siRNA) by Dicer.
 The si RNA-Dicer complex recruits
additional components to form an
RNA-Induced Silencing Complex
(RISC). The siRNA unwinds.
 The unwound siRNA base pairs
with complementary mRNA, thus
guiding the RNAi machinery to the
target mRNA.
 The target m RNA is effectively
cleaved and subsequently
degraded – resulting in gene
silencing.
 Non sense Mediated Decay:
 Nonsense mediated decay
(NMD) is a cellular mechanism
of mRNA surveillance that
functions to detect nonsense
mutations and prevent the
expression of truncated or
erroneous proteins.
 NMD is triggered by exon
junction complexes (EJCs)
(components of the assembled
RNP) that are deposited during
pre-mRNA processing.
 Anti sense RNA technology:
 It blocks the activity of the m
RNA in a stoichiometric
manner.
 Antisense RNA has the opposite
sense to m RNA.
 The presence of complimentary
sense and antisense RNA in the
in the same cell can lead to the
formation of a stable duplex
which interferes with gene
expression at the level of RNA
processing or possible
translation.
 This technology widely used in
plants for gene inhibition.
 Advantages of gene silencing:
 Downregulation of gene expression simplifies "knockout" analysis.
 Easier than use of antisense oligonucleotides. Si RNA more effective and
sensitive at lower concentration.
 Cost effective
 High Specificity middle region 9-14 are most sensitive With Si RNA, the
researcher can simultaneously perform experiments in any cell type of interest
Can be labelled Ease of transfection by use of vector
 blocking expression of unwanted genes and undesirable substances.
 Inducing viral resistance
 Powerful tool for analysing unknown genes in sequenced genomes.
 Useful approach in future gene therapy.
 Oligonucleotides can be manufactured quickly, some within one week; the
sequence of the mRNA is all that is needed
 Disadvantages of gene silencing:
 ”High pressure injection” and electroporation can cause significant
injection damage to the integrity of the normal tissues and organs and
thus preclude the utilisation in a clinical set-up.
 Liposomes/cationic encapsulated Si RNA may also be toxic to the host and
may cause severe host immune responses.
 Other emerging strategies includes chemical modification of Si RNA
molecules and encapsulated with different molecules are still in their
infancy and need to be thoroughly investigated before used in therapeutic
applications.
Application of Gene silencing
 Specific gene silencing using RNA i in cell culture.
 Cancer treatments
 RNA interference has been used for applications in biotechnology, particularly
in the engineering of food plants that produce lower levels of natural plant
toxins.
 Such techniques take advantage of the stable and heritable RNA i phenotype
in plant stocks. For example, cotton seeds.
 Modulation of HIV-I replication by RNA i.
 Small RNA and it’s application in andrology and urology.
 Developing technologies for epigenomic analysis and clinical application of
molecular diagnosis.
 Currently there are at least six oligonucleotide drugs inducing RNA i for illness
including cancer.
conclusion
 it is the epigenetic regulation of gene expression and widely used in
agriculture and in biotechnology.
 Besides the all types of gene silencing the RNA i is the important post
transcriptional gene silencing.
Bibliography
 Molecular biology of the cell 5th edition by whatson, baker , bell, gann,
levinn, losick.
 Molecular biology by David p. Clark ELSEVIER.
 RNA i guide to gene silencing by Gregory J. Hannon.
 Gene silencing theory, techniques and applications by Anthony J. catalano