Transgenic RNAi in mouse oocytes

Abstract

RNA interference (RNAi) is double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-mediated mRNA degradation. RNAi has been widely used to investigate gene functions. Many methods to induce transient or stable RNAi have been developed. Transient RNAi can be induced by delivering of a long dsRNA or short interfering RNAs (siRNAs). Stable RNAi may be induced by introducing plasmids expressing a long or a short hairpin RNA. Both small and long RNAs have been used to induce transient RNAi in mouse oocytes. Nevertheless, only long hairpin-expressing system has been used to trigger stable RNAi in oocytes. Although, this system appeared to be highly efficient and specific, it has several disadvantages as complicated long inverted repeat cloning or limited possibility to test these vectors in the cell culture. Here, we constructed a short hairpin-expressing vector suitable for transgenic RNAi induction in mouse oocytes. The new vector, pTMP_ZP3_sh, was derived from a lentiviral short hairpin vector selected based on comparative study of different short hairpin-expressing plasmids. The pTMP_ZP3_sh vector was tested by targeting Moloney sarcoma oncogene (Mos) mRNA, which is a common model for RNAi in mouse oocytes. We designed several candidate short hairpin sequences and tested their efficacy. Subsequently, the most efficient one was selected...