Short interfering RNA confers intracellular antiviral immunity in human cells

Leonid Gitlin, Sveta Karelsky and Raul Andino ()
Additional contact information
Leonid Gitlin: University of California
Sveta Karelsky: University of California
Raul Andino: University of California

Nature, 2002, vol. 418, issue 6896, 430-434

Abstract: Abstract Gene silencing mediated by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is a sequence-specific, highly conserved mechanism in eukaryotes. In plants, it serves as an antiviral defence mechanism1,2,3. Animal cells also possess this machinery but its specific function is unclear4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Here we demonstrate that dsRNA can effectively protect human cells against infection by a rapidly replicating and highly cytolytic RNA virus. Pre-treatment of human and mouse cells with double-stranded, short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to the poliovirus genome markedly reduces the titre of virus progeny and promotes clearance of the virus from most of the infected cells. The antiviral effect is sequence-specific and is not attributable to either classical antisense mechanisms or to interferon and the interferon response effectors protein kinase R (PKR) and RNaseL. Protection is the result of direct targeting of the viral genome by siRNA, as sequence analysis of escape virus (resistant to siRNAs) reveals one nucleotide substitution in the middle of the targeted sequence. Thus, siRNAs elicit specific intracellular antiviral resistance that may provide a therapeutic strategy against human viruses.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature00873 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:418:y:2002:i:6896:d:10.1038_nature00873

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature00873

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().