Small Interfering RNAs (siRNA) are a type of post-transcriptional gene regulator with perfect complementarity to its target gene/mRNA. microRNAs (miRNA) are a type of post-transcriptional gene regulator that silences a number of genes based on sequence complementarity to the miRNA Response Element (MREs) on the target mRNA. siRNAs of varying complementarity to their target sequence will be used as a proxy to [investigate/disprove] the existence of a miRNA complementarity level that maximizes gene silencing of SBP-1 which regulates lipid homeostasis in C. elegans.
The lipid homeostasis and fatty acid synthesis pathway in C. elegans is homologous to the human SREBP pathway. Red Nile staining and body size measurements provide proxy measurements for C. elegans lipid homeostasis and fatty acid synthesis in response to glucose feeding and siRNA introduction via soaking. SBP-1, fat-2, fat-5, fat-6, fat-7, and elo-2 mRNA expression in C. elegans is measured via RT-PCR.
In this study, we determine whether higher siRNA:mRNA complementarity increases siRNA silencing of the Bcl-2 and Sbp-1 pathways in C. elegans following the introduction of high and low complementarity siRNAs as a proxy for investigating the gene silencing effects of miRNA:MRE complementarity.
