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Nature Chemical Biology 3, 136–137 (1 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/nchembio0307-136

Transcriptional activation by small RNA duplexes

John J Rossi

RNA interference (RNAi) was first described as a post-transcriptional gene silencing process triggered by small double-stranded RNAs 21 to 28 nucleotides in length. Initial reports found a role for these small RNAs in DNA methylation in plants, with subsequent experiments in Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Drosophila melanogaster providing further proof of the generality of this phenomenon and additional mechanistic insight into the process with the identification of RNAi components and methylated histones.