The 5' binding MID domain of human Argonaute2 tolerates chemically modified nucleotide analogues

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) can trigger potent gene silencing through the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway. The RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) is key to this targeted mRNA degradation, and the human Argonaute2 (hAGO2) endonuclease component of RISC is responsible for the actual mRNA cleavage event. During RNAi, hAGO2 becomes loaded with the siRNA guide strand, making several key nucleic acid-enzyme interactions. Chemically modified siRNAs are now widely used in place of natural double-stranded RNAs, and understanding the effects chemical modifications have on guide strand-hAGO2 interactions has become particularly important. Here, interactions between the 5' nucleotide binding domain of hAGO2, MID, and chemically modified nucleotide analogues are investigated. Measured dissociation constants reveal that hAGO2 does not discriminate between nucleotide analogues during binding, regardless of the preferred sugar conformation of the nucleotide analogues. These results correlate well with cell-based gene silencing results employing siRNAs with 5'-modified guide strands. Additionally, chemical modification with 2'-deoxy-2'-fluoroarabino nucleic acid (2'F-ANA) and 2'-deoxy-2'-fluororibonucleic acid (2'F-RNA) at the passenger strand cleavage site of siRNAs has been shown to prevent hAGO2-mediated strand cleavage, an observation that appears to have little impact on overall gene silencing potency.