Mirus Bio says it has developed a new method to analyze gene function in vivo. The technique utilizes the company’s hydrodynamic injection technology to efficiently introduce siRNA to the liver of animal models, resulting in the suppression of target gene activity.
Researchers can employ this new tool to decipher the function of genes by studying the biological and physiological impact of a change in gene expression, which is useful in the identification of new therapeutic drug targets. This tool will be of interest to researchers engaged in studying metabolic diseases, toxicology, liver cancer, and other related fields.
This new technique is described in the August 31, 2006 advanced access service of the journal Nucleic Acids Research. The publication entitled “Transcriptional and phenotypic comparisons of Ppara knockout and siRNA knockdown mice” resulted from a collaboration between a research group at Rosetta Inpharmatics.
