Patent ID: 8609830

Claim:
A method of designing a small interfering RNA (“siRNA”) for silencing a first gene but not a second gene in a eukaryotic cell by RNA interference, comprising selecting an siRNA sequence that is characterized as: (a) comprising a central contiguous nucleotide sequence of at least 11 nucleotides that is (i) identical to a sequence of a transcript of said first gene or (ii) identical to the reverse complement of a sequence of a transcript of said first gene; (b) lacking any central contiguous nucleotide sequence of more than 10 nucleotides that is identical to a sequence of a transcript of said second gene and lacking any central contiguous nucleotide sequence of more than 10 nucleotides that is identical to the reverse complement of a sequence of a transcript of said second gene; and (c) lacking any 3′ end contiguous nucleotide sequence of 8 or more nucleotides that is identical to a sequence of said transcript of said second gene and lacking any 3′ end contiguous nucleotide sequence of 8 or more nucleotides that is identical to the reverse complement of a sequence of a transcript of said second gene; said central contiguous nucleotide sequence being in the central region of said siRNA; said 3′ end contiguous nucleotide sequence terminating within 3 nucleotides of the 3′ end of said siRNA; wherein said selecting step is performed by a suitably programmed computer.