Quantitation of Ribozyme Target Abundance by QCPCR

Ribozymes show promise as therapeutic agents for the downregulation of specific target RNAs inside cells. To demonstrate the efficacy of a given ribozyme treatment, one needs to show that the treatment ameliorates the disease condition relative to a control treatment. As part of that demonstration, it is useful to show that treatment with ribozyme also results in a lowered abundance of the target RNA (see Note 1 ). This chapter describes the application of the quantitative, competitive polymerase chain reaction (QCPCR) technique for evaluating the abundance of RNAs targeted for ribozyme-mediated destruction.