Long Double-stranded RNA Produces Specific Gene Knockdown in Giardia lamblia

MARIA R. RIVERO; LIUDMILA KULAKOVA; MARIA C. TOUZ

JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY

AMER SOC PARASITOLOGISTS

Año: 2010

0022-3395

In many eukaryotes, the introduction of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) into cells triggers the degradation of mRNAs through a posttranscriptional gene silencing mechanism called RNA interference or RNAi. In this study, we found that endogenous long-dsRNA was substantially more effective at producing interference than endogenous or exogenous short-dsRNA expression in Giardia lamblia. The effects of this interference were not evident in the highly expressed proteins tubulin or the stage-specific cyst wall protein 2. However, long-dsRNA caused potent and specific interference in the medium subunits of adaptins, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, and the exogenous GFP. Our results suggest that the ability of dsRNA antisense to inhibit the expression of these specific types of proteins is indicative of a gene-specific mechanism.