shRNA libraries now in new format

Frozen bacterial glycerol stock format for lentiviral-based shRNA clones will save researchers time and expense in purifying transfection quality plasmid DNA

Sigma-Aldrich, through an exclusive agreement with the RNAi Consortium (TRC), announces the expansion of the Mission TRC shRNA library product lines to include purified plasmid DNA in addition to the previously released frozen bacterial glycerol stock format.

This new format of the lentiviral-based shRNA clones, which target human and mouse genes for RNAi-mediated gene silencing, will save researchers time and expense in purifying transfection quality plasmid DNA.

Sigma-Aldrich says it is the first to market comprehensive shRNA clone libraries in this format, allowing researchers to directly transfect cells of interest or prepare viral particles for transduction of their cell system.

Upon transfection, transient or stable gene silencing may be achieved depending upon the desired duration of phenotypic observation.

Compatibility with lentiviral packaging systems allows infection and integration into the genomes of traditionally difficult cell lines such as primary cells and non-dividing cells often used in biomedical research.

TRC is comprised of principal investigators from world-class academic research institutions (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Washington University, Columbia University, and Academia Sinica) as well as corporate sponsoring institutions (Sigma-Aldrich, Novartis, Eli Lilly, and Bristol-Myers Squibb).

As a scientific collaborator and distribution partner through agreement with MIT, Sigma-Aldrich is working with TRC to provide the scientific community with RNAi tools for functional genomics research specifically for gene function discovery and the study of disease.

The Mission TRC shRNA clone libraries will comprise a comprehensive collection of 150,000 pre-cloned lentiviral-based shRNA vector constructs targeting 15,000 human genes (Mission TRC-Hs1.0) and 15,000 mouse genes (Mission TRC-Mm1.0).

Design and development of the TRC libraries is being led by the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard.

"The new purified plasmid DNA format for the Mission TRC libraries will provide researchers with a convenient tool for RNAi research," commented Henry George, functional genomics R and D manager at Sigma-Aldrich.

"Not only will the community have access to the lentiviral-based TRC shRNA collections, they can now focus on use of the clones rather than upstream DNA processing steps.".

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