The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 16, 2013
Filed:
Oct. 04, 2010
Thomas Tuschl, Goettingen, DE;
Phillip D. Zamore, Northborough, MA (US);
Phillip A. Sharp, Newton, MA (US);
David P. Bartel, Brookline, MA (US);
Thomas Tuschl, Goettingen, DE;
Phillip D. Zamore, Northborough, MA (US);
Phillip A. Sharp, Newton, MA (US);
David P. Bartel, Brookline, MA (US);
University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA (US);
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA (US);
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (US);
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften E.V., Munich, DE;
Abstract
The present invention relates to a Drosophila in vitro system which was used to demonstrate that dsRNA is processed to RNA segments 21-23 nucleotides (nt) in length. Furthermore, when these 21-23 nt fragments are purified and added back to Drosophila extracts, they mediate RNA interference in the absence of long dsRNA. Thus, these 21-23 nt fragments are the sequence-specific mediators of RNA degradation. A molecular signal, which may be their specific length, must be present in these 21-23 nt fragments to recruit cellular factors involved in RNAi. This present invention encompasses these 21-23 nt fragments and their use for specifically inactivating gene function. The use of these fragments (or chemically synthesized oligonucleotides of the same or similar nature) enables the targeting of specific mRNAs for degradation in mammalian cells, where the use of long dsRNAs to elicit RNAi is usually not practical, presumably because of the deleterious effects of the interferon response. This specific targeting of a particular gene function is useful in functional genomic and therapeutic applications.