Figure 4
mRNAs deregulated by GFP siRNA contain short sequences perfectly matched to the sense or antisense strand of GFP siRNA. In order to shed light on the molecular mechanism of sequence-specific off-target effects, we analyzed the mRNAs modulated after transfection of GFP siRNA for sequence homology to the transfected siRNA molecules. The number of perfect matches with a homology length of at least 8 bp was significantly higher using the proper GFP siRNA sequences as compared to the shuffled siRNA sequences.