It was further confirmed  in Studies conducted by Dr. Philippe Serrat and his team at University of Sherbrooke.

Louis Doré-Savard, Geneviève Roussy, Marc-André Dansereau, Michael A Collingwood, Kim A Lennox, Scott D Rose, Nicolas Beaudet, Mark A Behlke and Philippe Sarret. Central Delivery of Dicer-substrate siRNA: A Direct Application for Pain Research. Molecular Therapy (2008); Jul;16(7):1331-9. Epub 2008 Jun 3 doi:10.1038/mt.2008.98.

Using ultra low dose of DsiRNAs complexed with Neuromics’  i-Fect , they were able to successfully reduce NTS2 gene expression by up to 86% in rat lumbar Dorsal Root Ganglia after only two intrathecal injections. This was confirmed by Western Blot and qPCR analysis.

We now have further confirmation of the capabilities of this delivery platform in a just released publication by Dr. Jeffrey Mogil and team:

Michael L. LaCroix-Fralish, Gary Mo, Shad B. Smith, Susana G. Sotocinal, Jennifer Ritchie, Jean-Sebastien Austin, Kara Melmed, Ara Schorscher-Petcu, Audrey C. Laferriere, Tae Hoon Lee, Dmitry Romanovsky, Guochun Liao, Mark A. Behlke, David J. Clark, Gary Peltz, Philippe Séguéla, Maxim Dobretsov and Jeffrey S. Mogil. The β3 subunit of the Na+,K+-ATPase mediates variable nociceptive sensitivity in the formalin test. doi:10.1016/j.pain.2009.04.028.

IT Delivery of siRNA in vivo supplement

Story to be published July 11, 2008.

Dr. Behlke, his team and collaborators are working on improving the delivery of Dicer-substrate siRNAs (DsiRNAs) in vitro and in vivo.

His work has helped establish siRNA technology as a viable tool for drug development.

Please see the article titled RNAi Researchers Galvanized by Advances: Technology’s Viability in Drug Development Is Finally Established by Elizabeth Lipp.

It appeared in the June 1, 2008 issue of Genetic Engineering & biotechnology News.

Here’s a notable quote from Dr. Behlke:

Long dsRNAs have been employed for many years as a means to modulate gene expression in plants, yeast, and C. elegans. Similar attempts in higher organisms failed due to interferon activation, however we now know that short RNA duplexes can be safely used in mammalian systems both in vitro and in vivo.

The technology has rapidly matured, thanks in large part to all that was learned over the past 20 years using antisense oligonucleotides. RNAi is now routinely employed in vivo as an experimental tool and numerous groups are vigorously pursing the use of RNAi compounds as therapeutics. Several siRNA drugs are already in clinical trials and more are in preclinical development.

My first “News Behind the News” story posted to this Neuromics blog will feature Dr. Mark Behlke, CSO, Integrated DNA Technologies.