Asymmetric siRNA: new strategy to improve specificity and reduce off-target gene expression

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) have been used extensively in reverse genetic research, and many have made their way into clinical trials. The most widely used siRNA structure consists of double-stranded RNA with 19 base pairs and 2-nucleotide overhangs at the 3'-end of both strands (19+2). Although widely used, this symmetric structure bears inherent disadvantages in both research and clinical applications. One of the most common caveats is the off-target effect leading to adverse effects in clinical application. In the current study, using C-C chemokine receptor (CCR5) as a target, we have shown that 19+2 siRNA could still cause considerable global off-target effects regardless of rational design based on its thermodynamic asymmetry. However, we demonstrated that structurally asymmetric siRNA targeting CCR5 could be adopted to improve the strand specificity and greatly reduce the off-target effects without significantly compromising its on-target effects. Data from microarray analysis suggest that an unidentified mechanism resulting in global gene down-regulation might be avoided through strand shortening. Taken together, our work suggested a promising and simple way to improve strand specificity and overcome the off-target gene-expression effects without introducing more complications while retaining the efficacy of siRNA.