RNAi Makes Strides in Mammalian Functional Genomics

©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Genomic RNA interference (RNAi) libraries have proven valuable resources for scientists who study Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans. Mammalian libraries, though, have lagged behind. No longer: Teams at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories (CSHL)¹ in New York and the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NCI)² in Amsterdam have separately created human libraries that target between 8,000 and 9,000 genes.

While both sites used state-of-the-art technology, knowledge about RNAi has grown so rapidly that both CSHL team leader Gregory Hannon and NCI team leader Rene Bernards say they are developing new RNAi libraries using the latest tools and techniques. "Having done perhaps half to a third of all human genes, we've learned so much about the science of RNAi in the last year that we're going back and doing it again now on both human and mouse, with vectors and approaches that incorporate the new science," Hannon...