The Progress of RNA Interference Research in the Field of Medicine

The RNA interference (RNAi) is a kind of phenomenan which repress particular gene to express in normal living body, using double stranded RNA (dsRNA) to induce the degradation of target mRNA leading to the gene silencing. The progress in RNAi research and significant discovery of medicine was reviewed in this paper. The discovery of RNAi was retrospected, and its molecular mechanism, the main characteristics, the design ideas in application of this technology, and challenges in the field of medicine were described. RNAi mainly exists in the cytoplasm, taking place post-transcriptionally, so it is also called the post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS). It has high specificity and high efficiency. Application of technology can investigate and develop targeted gene drugs to various diseases. RNAi can not only be a knockout gene technology, but also can be a possible drug. Although the technology does not reach perfection at present, it has already shown great potential in the field of medicine.