Chemically modified siRNAs were synthesized to enhance the corresponding silencing activities. The introduced modifications endowed siRNAs with high silencing effect, long RNAi persistence, and better serum resistance. Theoretical data allowed us to correlate the observed siRNAs interfering performance with the peculiar interactions with PAZ.
Keywords: RNA interference; gene silencing; modified siRNAs; molecular modeling; siRNA/PAZ interactions.