Definition Of Gene Silencing

A mechanism by which cells shut down large sections of chromosomal dna.

Definition of gene silencing. Gene silencing the inhibition of transcription of a gene. Gene silencing can occur during either transcription or translation and is often used in research. Gene silencing is the regulation of gene expression in a cell to prevent the expression of a certain gene. Gene silencing is done by incorporating the dna to be silenced into a form of dna called heterochromatin that is already silent.

Double stranded rna molecules introduced into cells with viral. The antisense or co supression of gene expression collectively known as post transcriptional gene silencing has been particularly versatile and powerful in studies of plant metabolism we suspect that there is a system in humans that causes gene silencing but we don t know the mechanism yet. Gene silencing is a modern gene editing technique used for genetic engineering experiments. Dna methylation is an important cause of gene silencing and when this affects tumour suppressor genes may be a cause of cancer gene silencing a therapeutic technique to prevent the expression of genes that are acting harmfully.