K.M. Standifer, C.C. Chien, C. Wahlestedt, G.P. Brown, G.W. Pasternak, "Selective loss of delta-opioid analgesia and binding by antisense oligodeoxynucleotide to a delta-opioid receptor," Neuron, 12:805-10, 1994. (Cited in more than 30 publications as of February 1996)
Unzip a chunk of DNA. Two strands result. One, dubbed the "sense" strand, carries genetic information. The other, the antisense strand, says nothing.
In theory, scientists can use antisense molecules to block the production of a particular protein. Scientists construct antisense strands by stringing together DNA bases that are complementary to the messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding the protein. This mirror-image piece of genetic material, in binding to the mRNA, halts it from hooking up with a cell's protein-manufacturing machinery.
SENSIBLE: Gavril W. Pasternak uses antisense to study opioid receptors In this paper, Gavril W. Pasternak, head of the laboratory of molecular neuropharmacology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and his coworkers ...
