Sigma® Life Science Launches Tough Decoy (TuD) miRNA Inhibitors in Collaboration with University of Tokyo Drs. Hideo Iba and Takeshi Haraguchi

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Sigma-Aldrich^® Corporation (NASDAQ: SIAL) today announced that Sigma Life Science, its innovative biological products and services business, through an exclusive collaboration with Drs. Hideo Iba and Takeshi Haraguchi at the University of Tokyo, released MISSION^® Synthetic and Lentiviral microRNA Inhibitors based upon the Tough Decoy (TuD) design for the long-term suppression of any miRNA endogenous to humans or mice. Custom designs for other species are available upon request. Each microRNA inhibitor is designed using a proprietary algorithm that evaluates all possible sequences for the design predicted to best maintain the TuD structure, providing maximal miRNA recognition and binding. For more information, visit www.sigma.com/inhibitors.  

Naturally-occurring miRNAs inhibit translation of a large percentage of mRNAs encoding human proteins and play pivotal roles in oncogenesis, development, cell differentiation, and immune responses.  Iba and Haraguchi invented TuD RNAs^1,2 as a more potent tool to suppress specific miRNAs and thus investigate their biological functions.

In contrast to current approaches that use single-stranded RNAs, such as sponge decoys and locked nucleic acids, TuD RNAs are double-stranded. This, along with a stem-loop stabilized secondary structure, resists cellular nuclease degradation and facilitates sustained miRNA inhibition for longer than one month. In addition, both strands of a TuD RNA contain an miRNA binding site for more efficient sequestration of target miRNAs at lower, nanomolar concentrations.

"Drs. Iba and Haraguchi's Tough Decoy RNAs are an elegant and more practical tool for exploring the impact of microRNA gene regulation on human disease. Sigma Life Science's mission is to support this field's rapid development by making keystone technologies like this broadly accessible," says Dr. Supriya Shivakumar, Director of Emerging Technologies at Sigma Life Science.

Sigma Life Science provides the TuD RNAs in both synthetic and lentiviral formats to support transient miRNA knockdown as well as long-term miRNA suppression without repeated transfections. The miRNA binding sites are designed using human and mouse sequence data from the most recent version of miRBase (v.19).

Many other tools for miRNA screening, identification, and validation experiments are available from Sigma Life Science. These include synthetic human miRNA mimics, a miRNA isolation kit, a method to identify the specific gene(s) that a miRNA targets (licensed exclusively from Dr. Joop Gaken at King's College London), and a library of human 3′UTRs for validating many miRNA gene targets.

For more information, visit www.sigma.com/mirna.

(1) Haraguchi, T., et al., Vectors expressing efficient RNA decoys achieve the long-term suppression of specific microRNA activity in mammalian cells. Nucleic Acids Res., 37, (2009).

(2) Haraguchi, T, et al. A potent 2'-O-methylated RNA-based microRNA inhibitor with unique secondary structures. Nucleic Acids Res. 2012 Apr;40(8):e58. Epub 2012 Jan 17.

Cautionary Statement: The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "more potent," "more efficient," or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding potential future revenues from products derived there from. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that these tough decoy RNAs or related services will assist the Company to achieve any particular levels of revenue in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding products associated with tough decoy RNAs or related services could be affected by, among other things, unexpected regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; the Company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the impact that the foregoing factors could have on the values attributed to the Company's assets and liabilities as recorded in its consolidated balance sheet, and other risks and factors referred to in Sigma-Aldrich's current Form 10-K on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Sigma-Aldrich is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich is a leading Life Science and High Technology company whose biochemical, organic chemical products, kits and services are used in scientific research, including genomic and proteomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, the diagnosis of disease and as key components in pharmaceutical, diagnostics and high technology manufacturing. Sigma-Aldrich customers include more than 1.3 million scientists and technologists in life science companies, university and government institutions, hospitals and industry. The Company operates in 38 countries and has nearly 9,000 employees whose objective is to provide excellent service worldwide. Sigma-Aldrich is committed to accelerating customer success through innovation and leadership in Life Science and High Technology. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its website at www.sigma-aldrich.com.

About Sigma Life Science: Sigma Life Science is a Sigma-Aldrich business that represents the Company's leadership in innovative biological products and services for the global life science market and offers an array of biologically-rich products and reagents that researchers use in scientific investigation. Product areas include biomolecules, genomics and functional genomics, cells and cell-based assays, transgenics, protein assays, stem cell research, epigenetics and custom services/oligonucleotides. Sigma Life Science also provides an extensive range critical bioessentials like biochemicals, antibiotics, buffers, carbohydrates, enzymes, forensic tools, hematology and histology, nucleotides, amino acids and their derivatives, and cell culture media.

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SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich Corporation