High throughput siRNA screens
RNAi can be used as a tool to study functions of thousands of genes in a cell. SiRNA libraries composed of large numbers of siRNAs have been developed. They are used for identifying sets of genes involved in a specific biological process or metabolism of a disease. Phenotypic high throughput siRNA screens are a dominant approach to study relationships between structure and function of genes and to identify novel parts of signaling pathways.
In actual fact, large-scale siRNA screening is commonly used for functional genomic and drug target validation. High throughput applications requires that reliable and reproducible transfections be performed in 96-, 384-, or 1536-well plate format. Several transfection reagents are well-suited for high throughput shRNA, siRNA, and miRNA transfection.
A technique called reverse transfection has been developed. It allows for plating of the cells and delivery of siRNA-reagent complexes on the same day (thereby eliminating a source of high degree of variability in cell cultures and transfection efficiency).
