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ISSN 1672-9145 Acta Biochim Biophys Sin 2005, 37(6): 386–390 CN 31-1940/Q

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Dose-dependent Inhibition of Gynecophoral Canal Protein Gene Expression in Vitro in the Schistosome (Schistosoma japonicum) by RNA Interference

Guo-Feng CHENG¹, Jiao-Jiao LIN¹, Yi SHI², You-Xin JIN²*, Zhi-Qiang FU¹, Ya-Mei JIN¹, Yuan-Cong ZHOU², and You-Min CAI¹*

¹ Shanghai Institute of Animal Parasitology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Key Laboratory of Animal Parasitology, Ministry of Agriculture, Shanghai 200232, China; ² State Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China

Abstract The gynecophoral canal protein gene SjGCP of Schistosoma japonicum that is necessary for the pairing between the male and female worms is specifically expressed in the adult male worm. This protein is widely distributed in the adult female worm after pairing. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunofluorescence were employed to analyze the relationship between the RNAi effect and dsRNA dosage in the parasites. The results revealed that the inhibition of SjGCP expression by siRNA is dose-dependent. RT-PCR analysis showed that the SjGCP transcript level was reduced by 75% when 100 nM dsRNA was applied.

Key words RNA interference; gynecophoral canal protein gene; Schistosoma japonicum; dosage

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Received: January 18, 2005 Accepted: March 17, 2005

This work was supported by the grants from the Shanghai Important Science and Technology Key Program of China (No. 03DZ19231), the Shanghai Program for Phosphor Plan of China (No. 04QMX1462) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30270311)

*Corresponding authors:

You-Xin JIN: Tel, 86-21-54921222; Fax, 86-21-54921011; E-mail, [email protected]

You-Min CAI: Tel, 86-21-54082503; Fax, 86-21-54081818; E-mail, [email protected]