METHOD FOR PRODUCING ARTIFICIAL PIRNAS AND USES THEREOF FOR SILENCING GENE EXPRESSION

摘要

The present invention relates to a method for producing at least one artificial piRNA, comprising determining an endogenous piRNA population in a cell of an organism of interest; selecting a sub-population of said endogenous piRNA population based on binding of a MILI protein and/or an equivalent PIWI protein to said sub-population; identifying the sequence of at least one pi RNA as selected, attaching said at least one pi RNA sequence as identified 5' to the sequence of the transcript of a gene of interest, in order to generate at least one piRNA template, and slicing said piRNA template through binding of a MILI protein to said template and subsequent slicing of said bound piRNA template following a binding of MILI protein and/or MIWI2 protein in order to generate at least one artificial piRNA. The method can be used to produce pharmaceutical compositions comprising at least one artificial piRNA as produced according to the invention. Other aspects relates to a method for silencing the expression of a gene of interest in an organism of interest, comprising administering to said organism an effective amount of a pharmaceutical composition according to the invention, and a method for produing a non-genetically modified organism having an artificially silenced expression of at least one gene of interest based on the method of the invention.