Patent ID: 7868160

Claim:
A method for inhibiting the expression of the bcl-2 gene in a cell in vitro, the method comprising: (a) introducing into the cell a double-stranded ribonucleic acid (dsRNA), wherein the dsRNA is between 15 and 30 nucleotides in length and comprises at least two sequences that are complementary to each other, wherein a sense strand comprises a first sequence and an antisense strand comprises a second sequence comprising a region of complementarity which is substantially complementary to at least a part of a mRNA encoding bcl-2, and wherein said region of complementarity is between 15 and 30 nucleotides in length, wherein said region of complementarity between the sense strand and the antisense strand is between 15 and 30 nucleotides in length, wherein said dsRNA consists of 2′-O-methyl modified nucleotides located only at a penultimate and an antepenultimate position of the 3′ end of the antisense strand, and wherein said dsRNA, upon contact with a cell expressing said bcl-2, inhibits expression of said bcl-2 gene by at least 20%; (b) maintaining the cell produced in step (a) for a time sufficient to obtain degradation of the mRNA transcript of the bcl-2 gene, thereby inhibiting expression of the target gene in the cell, and wherein the method results in decreased inhibition of apoptosis.