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TaconicArtemis Announces Publication Describing Inducible Gene Silencing in Transgenic Rats via RNAi
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TaconicArtemis GmbH, a subsidiary of Taconic announces the publication of a scientific breakthrough achieved in collaboration with the Universities Goettingen and Wuerzburg (Germany).
Company says that for the first time it is now possible to inactivate disease-related genes in an inducible and reversible fashion in transgenic rats as rodent model organisms. These important results have now been published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The experimental work was performed in collaboration between the group of Professor Holger M. Reichardt, Universities Goettingen and Wuerzburg and TaconicArtemis GmbH, in addition to being supported by a grant from the German Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF).
The publication describes the development of a lentiviral single vector system for the temporal control of ubiquitous shRNA expression. This system was used to silence the insulin receptor gene. The induction of the knock down using the chemical compound Doxycycline resulted in a type II diabetes phenotype. Withdrawal of the inducer compound lead to a reactivation of gene function, which finally resulted in the reconstitution of the health status.
“Up to now the availability of tools for loss-of-function mutations in rats was limited. The only mammalian model organism for which the required tools have been developed during the past twenty years was the mouse” said Dr. Jost Seibler, Head of the RNAi Research Department at TaconicArtemis. “The possibility to modify gene function in transgenic rats represents a major breakthrough which opens up novel scientific possibilities in academic and pharmaceutical research.”
