Adapted resistance to the knockdown effect of shRNA-derived Srsf3 siRNAs in mouse littermates

Abstract

Gene silencing techniques are widely used to control gene expression and have potential for RNAi-based therapeutics. In this report, transgenic mouse lines were created for conditional knockdown of Srsf3 (SRp20) expression in liver and mammary gland tissues by expressing Srsf3-specific shRNAs driven by a U6 promoter. Although a small portion of the transgenic mouse littermates were found to produce siRNAs in the targeted tissues, most of the transgenic littermates at two months of age failed to display a knockdown phenotype of Srsf3 expression in their liver and mammary gland tissues where an abundant level of Srsf3 siRNAs remained. We saw only one of four mice with liver/mammary gland expressing Srsf3 siRNA displayed a suppressed level of Srsf3 protein, but not the mRNA. Data indicate that the host resistance to a gene-specific siRNA targeting an essential gene transcript can be developed in animals, presumably as a physiological necessity to cope with the hostile perturbation.