Mice deaths cast doubt on new gene test - RNAi

Mice deaths cast doubt on new gene test
May 26, 2006
newKerala.com
SANFORD, Calif: The deaths of a large number of mice involved in U.S. testing of a technique for inactivating genes has reportedly cast doubt on the procedure.
The new technique, called RNA interference -- already being used in laboratory experiments -- is just starting to be tested in people as a means of treating diseases by silencing the genes that cause them, The New York Times reported.
The report of the mouse deaths by Dr. Mark Kay and colleagues at the Stanford University School of Medicine appears in the journal Nature and suggests the test -- called RNAi -- caused liver poisoning in the mice.
"It's a very striking result -- all of the fatalities observed and the toxicity, which was unexpected," Timothy Nilsen, director of the center for RNA molecular biology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, told the Times. "It's really a note of concern for rapid therapeutic development of RNAi."
The mouse deaths occurred as experimenters attempted to induce RNA interference in the animals' livers to cure them of hepatitis B, the Times reported. In some cases the procedure worked, but in many others the mice died from liver poisoning.