Silencing SARS‐CoV Spike protein expression in cultured cells by RNA interference

FEBS Letters

Chen, Wei³  Ning, Hongxiu²  Wang, Yinyin²  Yu, Changming³  Zhang, Yuanjiang²  Xu, Xialian²  Babiuk, Lorne A¹  Li, Yinghua²  Chang, Zhijie²  Li, Tieshi²  Zhang, Shuping²  Fu, Ling³ 

[1] Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada;Institute of Biomedicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, PR China;The Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, AMMS, Beijing, PR China

关键词: Severe acute respiratory syndrome;    Spike protein;    RNA interference;    Gene silencing;   

DOI  :  10.1016/S0014-5793(04)00087-0

学科分类：生物化学/生物物理

来源: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has been one of the most epidemic diseases threatening human health all over the world. Based on clinical studies, SARS-CoV (the SARS-associated coronavirus), a novel coronavirus, is reported as the pathogen responsible for the disease. To date, no effective and specific therapeutic method can be used to treat patients suffering from SARS-CoV infection. RNA interference (RNAi) is a process by which the introduced small interfering RNA (siRNA) could cause the degradation of mRNA with identical sequence specificity. The RNAi methodology has been used as a tool to silence genes in cultured cells and in animals. Recently, this technique was employed in anti-virus infections in human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C/B virus. In this study, RNAi technology has been applied to explore the possibility for prevention of SARS-CoV infection. We constructed specific siRNAs targeting the S gene in SARS-CoV. We demonstrated that the siRNAs could effectively and specifically inhibit gene expression of Spike protein in SARS-CoV-infected cells. Our study provided evidence that RNAi could be a tool for inhibition of SARS-CoV.

【 授权许可】

Unknown