Non-Catalytic RISCs and Kinetics Determine Mammalian siRNA Sub-Cellular Localization

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are fundamental to the regulation of cell function. Much is known about its gene interfering mechanism, but a kinetic description of it is still lacking. Here, we derived a set of reaction-diffusion equations for multiple RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) pathways that give quantitative temporal and spatial descriptions of the siRNA process in mammalian cell, and are able to correctly describe all salient experimentally observed patterns of sub-cellular siRNA localization, including those that, at first glance, appear irreconcilable. These results suggest siRNA sub-cellular localization mainly concerns the non-catalytic RISC-target complex, and is caused by the selectiveness of RISC-target interaction and the permeability of the nuclear membrane to siRNA strands but not to RISC-target complexes. Our method is expected to be useful in devising RNAi based cell regulation strategies.