shRNA / siRNA Validation

RNAx was founded in December 2002 by scientists from the Max-Planck-Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. RNAx are experts in RNA interference for target validation technologies. The company provide high quality posttranscriptional gene knockdown services with assays and cell lines as required.

RNAx has the capacity and experience to run whole genome RNAi screens, or subsets thereof, adapt assays to the automated set up, and also deliver results using an automated imaging facility. This way, RNAi screens can be made available to research laboratories and colleagues in clinical departments who do not have the necessary equipment, manpower and experience to run such screens by themselves.

shRNA / siRNA Validation

si- and shRNAs are excellent research tools, used to silence gene function at the level of mRNA. These tools are designed to specifically destroy the mRNA, produced during translation and transcription of the target sequence. Although the design algorithms to synthesize these tools have improved over time, they are still not perfect, and not always deliver sequences that exhibit the knock down effect at the desired efficiency.

RNAx’s shRNA / siRNA validation service overcomes this shortcut by designing a number of these molecules and subsequently testing their knock down efficiency in a standardized setting using real time PCR to measure the achieved silencing effect. The goal is to identify si- and shRNAs, exhibiting a knock down effect greater 90%. This is especially important to be able to detect phenotypic changes at the protein level.

Genomic Medical Research

Gene silencing using RNAi technologies has become a standard method which is used in many laboratories for genomic medical research. However, commercially available kits and protocols often are limited by the use of standard cell lines that are not always relevant to the specific research need.

Therefore, RNAx is specialized in adapting transfection- and knock down protocols to difficult to transfect cells, including primary cells derived from patients. Thus, the research results generated are much more relevant to the questions under investigation.

Phenotypic Changes

The idea behind a gene silencing effort is to be able to detect phenotypic changes after knocking down the expression of a target. To this end, the knock down has to be efficient in terms of percent of the achieved mRNA knock down during a certain period of time. In addition, it is also of crucial importance to choose and establish a suitable assay, able to detect phenotypic changes on the protein, or phenotypic level.

RNAx offers a variety of such assays, adapted to the automatic setting, and also develops or adapts assays of the customer’s choice, giving way to make conclusions on how the silencing of a target will eventually affect the phenotype, and hence the behaviour of the test system on the target knock down.

Contact:

Breddiner Weg 5
13591
Berlin,
Germany

Tel: +49 3048 637389
Fax: +49 3048 637379