FREDERICK, Md., Dec. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SuperArray Bioscience (www.SuperArray.com) announced today that, based on a rigorous experimental validation process, its siRNA- and shRNA-based RNA Interference demonstrates twice the success rate as the more widely used resource available from The RNAi Consortium for gene silencing.
SuperArray reports that 67.2 percent of their proprietary algorithm’s designs suppress target gene expression by at least 70 percent in a statistically significant fashion. The RNAi Consortium, a resource used by many researchers and other commercial providers of RNA Interference, only reports that 31 to 38 percent of its designs knock down gene expression to the same extent 1,2. SuperArray generates these results using a stringent real-time RT-PCR protocol with biological and technical replicates, and a data analysis method that accounts for all possible sources of variation. Their validation process and the success of their algorithm are published in a technical White Paper downloadable from their website at: http://www.superarray.com/validaternai.pdf.
RNA Interference, recently recognized by a Nobel Prize award, is a key technology in life science research, particularly in gene function studies and in drug target identification. Small duplexes of double-stranded ribonucleic acid, when introduced or transfected into mammalian cell lines in vitro, inhibit the expression of genes with complementary nucleotide sequences via a normal cellular process that identifies and degrades the messenger RNA responsible for the target gene’s expression. Researchers can then perform other biological experiments with the cells to ascertain the phenotypic changes that can be attributed to the gene of interest.
“We are very excited to provide guaranteed siRNA and shRNA performance to drug discovery and gene function researchers,” said Dr. Xiao Zeng, Senior Director of Research and Development at SuperArray Bioscience. “Based on our years experience in human, mouse, and rat genome-wide bioinformatics, we have developed an experimentally-verified design algorithm that optimizes RNA Interference efficacy and specificity. In fact, our results allow us to confidently guarantee that we can deliver two successful shRNA designs per gene, allowing researchers to control for the non-specific and off-target effects that tend to plague the use of this technique,” concluded Zeng.
On a per gene basis using a binomial distribution calculation, SuperArray further predicts an 89.3 percent success rate when designing shRNA for every gene in the human, mouse, or rat genome. More information about the RNA Interference from SuperArray Bioscience is available on the company’s web site at http://www.superarray.com/RNAi.php.
The gene silencing products from SuperArray are made under license from The Carnegie Institution of Washington for research use only. For commercial use, please direct the license queries to Gary Kowalczyk at The Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1530 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20005 or by email to gkowalczyk@ciw.edu.
1Root DE, Hacohen N, Hahn WC, Lander ES, Sabatini DM.” Nat Methods. 2006 Sep;3(9):715-9.
2Moffat J, Grueneberg DA, Yang X, et. al. Cell. 2006 Mar 24;124(6):1283-98.
CONTACT: Jeffrey Hung, Director of Marketing of SuperArray Bioscience
Corporation, +1-888-503-3187
Web site: http://www.superarray.com/
