Dharmacon's Smartpool siRNA reagents are ideally suited for drug target validation and are guaranteed to silence target gene expression by at least 75 per cent when used under appropriate conditions - the highest level of guaranteed silencing available. Most Smartpool siRNA reagents can silence the targeted gene by 90 per cent or even more.
Primarily aimed at researchers in drug discovery, functional genomics, and basic cell biology laboratories in pharma, biotech or university research labs, the reagents specifically target four separate locations on the target gene mRNA, limiting false negatives from SNPs or mutations. As each individual siRNA is present in lower concentrations, siRNA reagents are less prone to miss its target.
Michael Deines, vice president of sales and marketing at Dharmacon told DrugResearcher.com: "Dharmacon is the only supplier to offer both siRNA pools and 4 individual rationally designed siRNAs per gene for over 66,000 target genes."
He added: "Previously, researchers had to order a custom siRNA design and synthesis for each gene they wanted to study. This would cost between $1,000-$2,000 (€825 - €1651) per gene target. Or, they had to use substandard or public domain design algorithms to design their siRNA then have several siRNAs synthesized and tested in order to identify highly functional siRNA."
The siGenome collection consists of more than 300,000 highly functional siRNA reagents including Smartpool siRNA reagents, Smartselection-designed target gene siRNA sets, and individual Smartselection-designed siRNA duplexes targeting genes in the NCBI RefSeq database, the most complete public repository of curated genomic information available.
The siGenome format allows screening with Smartpool reagents and subsequent testing with four independent Smartselection-designed siRNA duplexes for independent verification of silencing results. Combining four highly functional siRNA duplexes into each Smartpool reagent minimizes off-target effects and the risk of false negative results from target gene sequence variation. Sequence information is available for all siGenome reagents.
The mouse and rat siRNA additions to siGenome are available now with pricing options dependent on configuration.