Abstract
Summary A GGGGCC expansion within an intronic region of the C9orf72 gene forms RNA foci that are associated with one-third of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and one-quarter of frontotemporal dementia. The C9orf72 locus also expresses an antisense transcript with a CCCCGG expansion that forms foci and may contribute to disease. Synthetic agents that bind these hexanucleotide repeats and block foci would be leads for therapeutic discovery. We have engineered duplex RNAs to enable them to recognize difficult C/G targets. Recognition inhibits foci formed by both GGGGCC and CCCCGG RNA. Our findings show that a single duplex RNA can be used to recognize both disease-related C9orf72 transcripts. More broadly, we extend RNAi to previously inaccessible C/G sequences and provide another example of target recognition in human cells by nuclear RNAi.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1505-1511 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Chemistry and Biology |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 19 2015 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Medicine
- Molecular Biology
- Pharmacology
- Drug Discovery
- Clinical Biochemistry