Question

What is antisense technology?

• A. A cell displaying a foreign antigen used for synthesis of antigens
• B. Production of somaclonal variants in tissue cultures
• C. When a piece of RNA that is complementary in sequence is used to stop expression of a specific gene
• D. RNA polymerase producing DNA

Answer 1

Answer: (C)

The antisense RNA technology simply involves the synthesis of RNA molecules that are complementary to the mRNA molecules produced by transcription of a given gene. Usually, this antisense RNA will not contain the regulatory sequence required for translation but even if it does, it will not usually specify a functional product. Instead, most antisense RNAs contain multiple termination codons in all three reading frames. However, when antisense RNA molecules are present in the same cytosol with sense (mRNA) molecules of a gene, the antisense RNA and mRNA molecules will anneal to form duplex RNA molecules. These duplex RNA molecules cannot be translated thus, the presence of antisense RNA will block translation of the mRNA of the affected gene.