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Drug-inducible synergistic gene silencing with multiple small hairpin RNA molecules for gene function study in animal model.

ABSTRACT: Gene targeting is a critical tool for construction of disease models. However, the application of traditional homologous recombination-mediated gene knockout technology is limited by the absence of rapid frequency-guaranteed targeting methods. Although conventional small hairpin RNA (shRNA)-mediated gene silencing offers an alternative for gene targeting, its application is frequently compromised by lower expression efficiency via RNA interference compared to gene knockout. Here we provide an efficient gene targeting strategy involving drug-inducible synergistic silencing with multiple shRNA molecules. On induction, the levels of the target proteins decreased to undetectable levels in all the tested stable transgenic mammalian cell lines, including HEK293 and embryonic stem cell-derived progenies carrying shRNA silencing cassettes. In a transgenic mouse model carrying a silencing cassette targeting the rhodopsin gene, short-time inducer treatment was sufficient to ablate the rhodopsin protein in the retina, resulting in similar retinal phenotypic changes as those observed in rhodopsin mutant mice. Therefore, on a broad basis, this inducible shRNA gene targeting strategy offers a true gene knockout alternative comparable to conventional RNA interference approaches.

SUBMITTER: Ying M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4356887 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundHairpin RNA (hpRNA) transgenes can be effective at inducing RNA silencing and have been exploited as a powerful tool for gene function analysis in many organisms. However, in fungi, expression of hairpin RNA transcripts can induce post-transcriptional gene silencing, but in some species can also lead to transcriptional gene silencing, suggesting a more complex interplay of the two pathways at least in some fungi. Because many fungal species are important pathogens, RNA silencing is a powerful technique to understand gene function, particularly when gene knockouts are difficult to obtain. We investigated whether the plant pathogenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum possesses a functional gene silencing machinery and whether hairpin RNA transcripts can be employed to effectively induce gene silencing.ResultsHere we show that, in the phytopathogenic fungus F. oxysporum, hpRNA transgenes targeting either a β-glucuronidase (Gus) reporter transgene (hpGus) or the endogenous gene Frp1 (hpFrp) did not induce significant silencing of the target genes. Expression analysis suggested that the hpRNA transgenes are prone to transcriptional inactivation, resulting in low levels of hpRNA and siRNA production. However, the hpGus RNA can be efficiently transcribed by promoters acquired either by recombination with a pre-existing, actively transcribed Gus transgene or by fortuitous integration near an endogenous gene promoter allowing siRNA production. These siRNAs effectively induced silencing of a target Gus transgene, which in turn appeared to also induce secondary siRNA production. Furthermore, our results suggested that hpRNA transcripts without poly(A) tails are efficiently processed into siRNAs to induce gene silencing. A convergent promoter transgene, designed to express poly(A)-minus sense and antisense Gus RNAs, without an inverted-repeat DNA structure, induced consistent Gus silencing in F. oxysporum.ConclusionsThese results indicate that F. oxysporum possesses functional RNA silencing machineries for siRNA production and target mRNA cleavage, but hpRNA transgenes may induce transcriptional self-silencing due to its inverted-repeat structure. Our results suggest that F. oxysporum possesses a similar gene silencing pathway to other fungi like fission yeast, and indicate a need for developing more effective RNA silencing technology for gene function studies in this fungal pathogen.

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Drug-inducible synergistic gene silencing with multiple small hairpin RNA molecules for gene function study in animal model.

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