ABSTRACT
RNAi screening is a viable approach to uncover disease-specific host factor or genes for novel therapeutic applications. This chapter discusses siRNAs and the intermediate of the RNAi pathway and their role in target discovery and drug repositioning. Traditionally, drug development involves two general approaches, that is, large-scale chemical library screening and structure-based virtual screening. Several efforts have focused on developing miRNA-based therapeutic interventions against pathogens and diseases. The correlations between miRNA and RNAi screenings provide an approach to identify high-confidence hits and therapeutic targets. Furthermore, while there may not be an available compound inhibitor, siRNAs can be designed to target the majority of genes and can potentially be used as therapeutics. Utilizing RNAi screens such as siRNA and miRNA screens for drug repurposing other than classical approaches can be hugely beneficial. By reducing the time and cost associated with other methods, siRNA screening can provide an easy, efficient way to work forward and not backward for disease therapeutic.
