Abstract
RNA interference using small inhibitory RNA (siRNA) has become a powerful tool to downregulate mRNA levels by cellular nucleases that become activated when a sequence homology between the siRNA and a respective mRNA molecule is detected. Therefore siRNA can be used to silence genes involved in the pathogenesis of various diseases associated with a known genetic background. As for many neurodegenerative disorders a causative therapy is unavailable, siRNA holds a promising option for the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Here we discuss different siRNA target strategies aiming for an allele-specific degradation of disease-inducing mRNA and we review the literature in the field of siRNA and its application in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntingtons disease (HD) and spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA1).
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
References
Abbas-Terki T, Blanco-Bose W, Deglon N, Pralong W, Aebischer P (2002) Lentiviral-mediated RNA interference. Hum Gene Ther 13: 2197–2201
Bernstein E, Caudy AA, Hammond SM, Hannon GJ (2001) Role for a bidentate ribonuclease in the initiation step of RNA interference. Nature 409: 363–366
Burright EN, Clark HB, Servadio A, Matilla T, Feddersen RM, Yunis WS, Duvick LA, Zoghbi HY, Orr HT (1995) SCA1 transgenic mice: a model for neurodegeneration caused by an expanded CAG trinucleotide repeat. Cell 82: 937–948
Clark HB, Burright EN, Yunis WS, Larson S, Wilcox C, Hartman B, Matilla A, Zoghbi HY, Orr HT (1997) Purkinje cell expression of a mutant allele of SCA1 in transgenic mice leads to disparate effects on motor behaviors, followed by a progressive cerebellar dysfunction and histological alterations. J Neurosci 17: 7385–7395
Dragatsis I, Levine MS, Zeitlin S (2000) Inactivation of Hdh in the brain and testis results in progressive neurodegeneration and sterility in mice. Nat Genet 26: 300–306
Duyao MP, Auerbach AB, Ryan A, Persichetti F, Barnes GT, McNeil SM, Ge P, Vonsattel JP, Gusella JF, Joyner AL, et al (1995) Inactivation of the mouse Huntington’s disease gene homolog Hdh. Science 269: 407–410
Elbashir SM, Harborth J, Lendeckel W, Yalcin A, Weber K, Tuschl T (2001) Duplexes of 21-nucleotide RNAs mediate RNA interference in cultured mammalian cells. Nature 411: 494–498
Fire A, Xu S, Montgomery MK, Kostas SA, Driver SE, Mello CC (1998) Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature 391: 806–811
Gurney ME, Pu H, Chiu AY, Dal Canto MC, Polchow CY, Alexander DD, Caliendo J, Hentati A, Kwon YW, Deng HX, Chen W, Zhai P, Sufit RL, Siddique T (1994) Motor neuron degeneration in mice that express a human Cu, Zn Superoxide dismutase mutation. Science 264: 1772–1775
Haass C (2004) Take five — BACE and the gamma-secretase quartet conduct Alzheimer’s amyloid beta-peptide generation. EMBO J 23: 483–488
Hammond SM, Bernstein E, Beach D, Hannon GJ (2000) An RNA-directed nuclease mediates post-transcriptional gene silencing in Drosophila cells. Nature 404: 293–296
Hammond SM, Boettcher S, Caudy AA, Kobayashi R, Hannon GJ (2001) Argonaute2, a link between genetic and biochemical analyses of RNAi. Science 293: 1146–1150
Harborth J, Elbashir SM, Bechert K, Tuschl T, Weber K (2001) Identification of essential genes in cultured mammalian cells using small interfering RNAs. J Cell Sci 114: 4557–4565
Harper SQ, Staber PD, He X, Eliason SL, Martins IH, Mao Q, Yang L, Kotin RM, Paulson HL, Davidson BL (2005) RNA interference improves motor and neuropathological abnormalities in a Huntington’s disease mouse model. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102: 5820–5825
Holsinger RM, McLean CA, Beyreuther K, Masters CL, Evin G (2002) Increased expression of the amyloid precursor beta-secretase in Alzheimer’s disease. Ann Neurol 51: 783–786
Kamenetz F, Tomita T, Hsieh H, Seabrook G, Borchelt D, Iwatsubo T, Sisodia S, Malinow R (2003) APP processing and synaptic function. Neuron 37: 925–937
Lorenzetti D, Watase K, Xu B, Matzuk MM, Orr HT, Zoghbi HY (2000) Repeat instability and motor incoordination in mice with a targeted expanded CAG repeat in the Scal locus. Hum Mol Genet 9: 779–785
Machida Y, Okada T, Kurosawa M, Oyama F, Ozawa K, Nukina N (2006) rAAV-mediated shRNA ameliorated neuropathology in Huntington disease model mouse. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 343: 190–197
Mangiarini L, Sathasivam K, Seller M, Cozens B, Harper A, Hetherington C, Lawton M, Trottier Y, Lehrach H, Davies SW, Bates GP (1996) Exon 1 of the HD gene with an expanded CAG repeat is sufficient to cause a progressive neurological phenotype in transgenic mice. Cell 87: 493–506
Martinez J, Patkaniowska A, Urlaub H, Luhrmann R, Tuschl T (2002) Single-stranded antisense siRNAs guide target RNA cleavage in RNAi. Cell 110: 563–574
Menalled LB (2005) Knock-in mouse models of Huntington’s disease. NeuroRx 2: 465–470
Nasir J, Floresco SB, O’Kusky JR, Diewert VM, Richman JM, Zeisler J, Borowski A, Marth JD, Phillips AG, Hayden MR (1995) Targeted disruption of the Huntington’s disease gene results in embryonic lethality and behavioral and morphological changes in heterozygotes. Cell 81: 811–823
Orr HT, Chung MY, Banfi S, Kwiatkowski TJ Jr, Servadio A, Beaudet AL, McCall AE, Duvick LA, Ranum LP, Zoghbi HY (1993) Expansion of an unstable trinucleotide CAG repeat in spinocerebellar ataxia type 1. Nat Genet 4: 221–226
Qin XF, An DS, Chen IS, Baltimore D (2003) Inhibiting HIV-1 infection in human T cells by lentiviral-mediated delivery of small interfering RNA against CCR5. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100: 183–188
Ralph GS, Radcliffe PA, Day DM, Carthy JM, Leroux MA, Lee DC, Wong LF, Bilsland LG, Greensmith L, Kingsman SM, Mitrophanous KA, Mazarakis ND, Azzouz M (2005) Silencing mutant SOD1 using RNAi protects against neurodegeneration and extends survival in an ALS model. Nat Med 11: 429–433
Raoul C, Abbas-Terki T, Bensadoun JC, Guillot S, Haase G, Szulc J, Henderson CE, Aebischer P (2005) Lentiviral-mediated silencing of SOD1 through RNA interference retards disease onset and progression in a mouse model of ALS. Nat Med 11: 423–428
Reddy PH, Williams M, Charles V, Garrett L, Pike-Buchanan L, Whetsell WO Jr, Miller G, Tagle DA (1998) Behavioural abnormalities and selective neuronal loss in HD transgenic mice expressing mutated fulllength HD cDNA. Nat Genet 20: 198–202
Reynolds A, Leake D, Boese Q, Scaringe S, Marshall WS, Khvorova A (2004) Rational siRNA design for RNA interference. Nat Biotechnol 22: 326–330
Roberds SL, Anderson J, Basi G, Bienkowski MJ, Branstetter DG, Chen KS, Freedman SB, Frigon NL, Games D, Hu K, Johnson-Wood K, Kappenman KE, Kawabe TT, Kola I, Kuehn R, Lee M, Liu W, Motter R, Nichols NF, Power M, Robertson DW, Schenk D, Schoor M, Shopp GM, Shuck ME, Sinha S, Svensson KA, Tatsuno G, Tintrup H, Wijsman J, Wright S, McConlogue L (2001) BACE knockout mice are healthy despite lacking the primary beta-secretase activity in brain: implications for Alzheimer’s disease therapeutics. Hum Mol Genet 10: 1317–1324
Rockenstein E, Mallory M, Mante M, Sisk A, Masliaha E (2001) Early formation of mature amyloid-beta protein deposits in a mutant APP transgenic model depends on levels of Abeta(l-42). J Neurosci Res 66: 573–582
Rodriguez-Lebron E, Denovan-Wright EM, Nash K, Lewin AS, Mandel RJ (2005) Intrastriatal rAAV-mediated delivery of anti-huntingtin shRNAs induces partial reversal of disease progression in R6/1 Huntington’s disease transgenic mice. Mol Ther 12: 618–633
Rosen DR, Siddique T, Patterson D, Figlewicz DA, Sapp P, Hentati A, Donaldson D, Goto J, O’ Regan JP, Deng HX, Rahmani Z, Krizus A, McKenna-Yasek D, Cayabyab A, Gaston SM, Berger R, Tanzi RE, Halperin JJ, Herzfeld B, Van den Bergh R, Hung WY, Bird T, Deng G, Mulder DW, Smyth C, Laing NG, Soriano E, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines J, Rouleau GA, Gusella JS, Horvitz HR, Brown Jr RH (1993) Mutations in Cu/Zn Superoxide dismutase gene are associated with familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Nature 362: 59–62
Rowland LP, Shneider NA (2001) Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. N Engl J Med 344: 1688–1700
Schwarz DS, Ding H, Kennington L, Moore JT, Schelter J, Burchard J, Linsley PS, Aronin N, Xu Z, Zamore PD (2006) Designing siRNA that distinguish between genes that differ by a single nucleotide. PLoS Genet 2: e140
Semizarov D, Frost L, Sarthy A, Kroeger P, Halbert DN, Fesik SW (2003) Specificity of short interfering RNA determined through gene expression signatures. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100: 6347–6352
Singer O, Marr RA, Rockenstein E, Crews L, Coufal NG, Gage FH, Verma IM, Masliah E (2005) Targeting BACE1 with siRNAs ameliorates Alzheimer disease neuropathology in a transgenic model. Nat Neurosci 8: 1343–1349
Snell RG, MacMillan JC, Cheadle JP, Fenton I, Lazarou LP, Davies P, MacDonald ME, Gusella JF, Harper PS, Shaw DJ (1993) Relationship between trinucleotide repeat expansion and phenotypic variation in Huntington’s disease. Nat Genet 4: 393–397
Wang YL, Liu W, Wada E, Murata M, Wada K, Kanazawa I (2005) Clinicopathological rescue of a model mouse of Huntington’s disease by siRNA. Neurosci Res 53: 241–249
Wheeler VC, Auerbach W, White JK, Srinidhi J, Auerbach A, Ryan A, Duyao MP, Vrbanac V, Weaver M, Gusella JF, Joyner AL, MacDonald ME (1999) Length-dependent gametic CAG repeat instability in the Huntington’s disease knock-in mouse. Hum Mol Genet 8: 115–122
White JK, Auerbach W, Duyao MP, Vonsattel JP, Gusella JF, Joyner AL, MacDonald ME (1997) Huntingtin is required for neurogenesis and is not impaired by the Huntington’s disease CAG expansion. Nat Genet 17: 404–410
Willem M, Garratt AN, Novak B, Citron M, Kaufmann S, Rittger A, DeStrooper B, Saftig P, Birchmeier C, Haass C (2006) Control of peripheral nerve myelination by the beta-secretase BACE1. Science 314: 664–666
Xia H, Mao Q, Eliason SL, Harper SQ, Martins IH, Orr HT, Paulson HL, Yang L, Kotin RM, Davidson BL (2004) RNAi suppresses polyglutamine-induced neurodegeneration in a model of spinocerebellar ataxia. Nat Med 10: 816–820
Yang D, Lu H, Erickson JW (2000) Evidence that processed small dsRNAs may mediate sequence-specific mRNA degradation during RNAi in Drosophila embryos. Curr Biol 10: 1191–1200
Zeitlin S, Liu JP, Chapman DL, Papaioannou VE, Efstratiadis A (1995) Increased apoptosis and early embryonic lethality in mice nullizygous for the Huntington’s disease gene homologue. Nat Genet 11: 155–163
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag
About this paper
Cite this paper
Koutsilieri, E., Rethwilm, A., Scheller, C. (2007). The therapeutic potential of siRNA in gene therapy of neurodegenerative disorders. In: Gerlach, M., Deckert, J., Double, K., Koutsilieri, E. (eds) Neuropsychiatric Disorders An Integrative Approach. Journal of Neural Transmission. Supplementa, vol 72. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-73574-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-73574-9_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna
Print ISBN: 978-3-211-73573-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-211-73574-9
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)