Pharma IQ Glossary: Gene Silencing
Gene Silencing is a general term describing epigenetic processes of gene regulation. The term gene silencing is generally used to describe the "switching off" of a gene by a mechanism other than genetic modification. That is, a gene which would be expressed (turned on) under normal circumstances is switched off by machinery in the cell. Genes are regulated at either the transcriptional or post-transcriptional level. Transcriptional gene silencing is the result of histone modifications, creating an environment of heterochromatin around a gene that makes it inaccessible to transcriptional machinery. Post-transcriptional gene silencing is the result of mRNA of a particular gene being destroyed or blocked. The destruction of the mRNA prevents translation to form an active gene product (in most cases, a protein).
