page_title: RNA interference
section_title: Crosstalk with RNA editing
hierarchical_section_title: RNA interference / Cellular mechanism / Crosstalk with RNA editing
caption_attribution_description: microRNA biogenesis and action.
context_page_description: RNA interference is a biological process in which RNA molecules inhibit gene expression or translation, by neutralizing targeted mRNA molecules. Historically, RNAi was known by other names, including co-suppression, post-transcriptional gene silencing, and quelling. The detailed study of each of these seemingly different processes elucidated that the identity of these phenomena were all actually RNAi. Andrew Fire and Craig C. Mello shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on RNA interference in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, which they published in 1998. Since the discovery of RNAi and its regulatory potentials, it has become evident that RNAi has immense potential in suppression of desired genes. RNAi is now known as precise, efficient, stable and better than antisense therapy for gene suppression. However, antisense RNA produced intracellularly by an expression vector may be developed and find utility as novel therapeutic agents.
  Two types of small ribonucleic acid molecules – microRNA and small interfering RNA – are central to RNA interference.
context_section_description: The type of RNA editing that is most prevalent in higher eukaryotes converts adenosine nucleotides into inosine in dsRNAs via the enzyme adenosine deaminase (ADAR). It was originally proposed in 2000 that the RNAi and A→I RNA editing pathways might compete for a common dsRNA substrate. Some pre-miRNAs do undergo A→I RNA editing and this mechanism may regulate the processing and expression of mature miRNAs. Furthermore, at least one mammalian ADAR can sequester siRNAs from RNAi pathway components. Further support for this model comes from studies on ADAR-null C. elegans strains indicating that A→I RNA editing may counteract RNAi silencing of endogenous genes and transgenes.
caption: Illustration of the major differences between plant and animal gene silencing. Natively expressed microRNA or exogenous small interfering RNA is processed by dicer and integrated into the RISC complex, which mediates gene silencing.[67]
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