Bioinformatics of siRNA Design

Abstract

RNA interference mediated by small interfering RNAs is a powerful tool for investigation of gene functions and is increasingly used as a therapeutic agent. However, not all siRNAs are equally potent, and although simple rules for the selection of good siRNAs were proposed early on, siRNAs are still plagued with widely fluctuating efficiency. Recently, new design tools incorporating both the structural features of the targeted RNAs and the sequence features of the siRNAs substantially improved the efficacy of siRNAs. In this chapter we will present a review of sequence and structure-based algorithms behind them.