What are the key parameters contributing to unwanted off-target effects in an RNAi experiment?
Off-target effects refers to any molecular and/or cellular change that occurs during the experiment that is not attributable to the sequence-specific RNAi event under study. There are two primary causes of off-target effects. The most common cause is utilizing an inferior siRNA/shRNA design algorithm. It is absolutely critical that a rigorous design algorithm be utilized, in order to assure gene specificity and maximal efficacy in your RNAi experiments. The SABiosciences SureSilencing™ shRNA plasmids have been engineered according to a proprietary, experimentally verified algorithm. The SureSilencing™ plasmids have been shown to out-perform the current TRC (The RNAi Consortium) collections, which serve as the basis for most of the commercially available shRNA product lines. For a detailed description of this study, please visit the following web address: http://www.sabiosciences.com/manuals/shRNAwhitepaper.pdf In addition to poorly-designed siRNA/shRNA molecules, the transfection condi
