ABSTRACT
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) plays a central role in the expression of genetically encoded information. The specificity afforded through complementary Watson–Crick base pairing allows information to be stored and read at the level of an RNA’s primary sequence. In theory, an RNAi substrate can be delivered to cells to target any gene of interest. Many systems designed for conditional RNAi make use of strand displacement reactions to facilitate their structural dynamics. Introduction of an additional RNA trigger strand with regions complementary to the initial construct can result in the possibility of forming a lower energy structure, ultimately inducing a conformational change. Conditional RNAi methods require only the delivery of relatively small nucleic acid constructs, and their effect is temporary, limiting the probability of serious, permanent off-target effects.
