insight
Nature 418, 244-251 (11 July 2002) | doi:10.1038/418244a
RNA interference
Gregory J. Hannon
Abstract
A conserved biological response to double-stranded RNA, known variously as RNA interference (RNAi) or post-transcriptional gene silencing, mediates resistance to both endogenous parasitic and exogenous pathogenic nucleic acids, and regulates the expression of protein-coding genes. RNAi has been cultivated as a means to manipulate gene expression experimentally and to probe gene function on a whole-genome scale.