TY - JOUR AU - Naito, Yuki AU - Yoshimura, Jun AU - Morishita, Shinichi AU - Ui-Tei, Kumiko PY - 2009 DA - 2009/11/30 TI - siDirect 2.0: updated software for designing functional siRNA with reduced seed-dependent off-target effect JO - BMC Bioinformatics SP - 392 VL - 10 IS - 1 AB - RNA interference (RNAi), mediated by 21-nucleotide (nt)-length small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), is a powerful tool not only for studying gene function but also for therapeutic applications. RNAi, requiring perfect complementarity between the siRNA guide strand and the target mRNA, was believed to be extremely specific. However, a recent growing body of evidence has suggested that siRNA could down-regulate unintended genes whose transcripts possess complementarity to the 7-nt siRNA seed region. This off-target gene silencing may often provide incongruous results obtained from knockdown experiments, leading to misinterpretation. Thus, an efficient algorithm for designing functional siRNAs with minimal off-target effect based on the mechanistic features is considered of value. SN - 1471-2105 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-10-392 DO - 10.1186/1471-2105-10-392 ID - Naito2009 ER -