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what do you mean by RNA interference?
RNA interference (RNAi) is a natural process that cells use to turn down, or silence, the activity of specific genes. Discovered in 1998, RNAi has taken the biomedical community by storm. Researchers quickly capitalized on the discovery and developed RNAi into a powerful research tool that is now used in thousands of labs worldwide.

RNAi works by destroying the molecular messengers that carry information coded in genes to the cell’s protein factories. These messengers, called messenger RNAs (mRNAs), carry out a critical function, without which a gene is essentially inactive.

Upon entering a cell, the double-stranded RNA molecules that trigger RNAi are cut into small fragments by an enzyme called Dicer. The small fragments then serve as guides, leading the cell’s RNAi machinery to mRNAs that match the genetic sequence of the fragments. The machinery then slices these cellular mRNAs, effectively destroying their messages and shutting off the corresponding gene.


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