Epigenetics Research: Open Access
Open Access

RNAi

RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules inhibit gene expression or translation by neutralizing targeted mRNA molecules. Historically RNAi was known by other names including co-suppression, post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) and quelling. The detailed study of each of these seemingly different processes elucidated that the identity of these phenomena were all actually RNAi. Andrew Fire and Craig C. Mello shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on RNA interference in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans which they published in 1998. Since the discovery of RNAi and its regulatory potentials it has become evident that RNAi has immense potential in suppression of desired genes. RNAi is now known as precise, efficient, stable and better than antisense technology for gene suppression. However antisense RNA produced intracellularly by an expression vector may be developed and find utility as novel therapeutic agents.