In: Biology
In some cases, an RNAi lines gives a different phenotype compared to a point mutation in the same gene. Why might this be the case?
Answer-RNAi reagents induce the sequence specific elimination of targeted mRNA molecules.The RNAi pathway is triggered when ds RNA that is introduced into a cell interacts with the endogenous cellular machinery to illicit the clevage of the target mRNA.The advantages of RNAi is the capacity to generate hypomorphic phenotypes by partially knocking down gene function and the ability to target specific exons.A disadvantage of RNAi is the substantial possibility of reagent specific off targets.knockdown efficiency also typically varies for different reagents ,even for those that target the same gene.Differences in knocking down efficiency off targets can lead to considerable variability in the phenotype observed with different reagents that target the same gene .