In vivo-applied functional RNAs as tools in proteomics and genomics research.

Non-natural, functional RNA molecules, such as short interfering (si) RNAs, aptazymes, maxizymes and intramers, allow modulation of gene function at the mRNA or protein level. This review discusses recent advances made in the expression and application of these functional RNAs and illustrates how engineered, intracellularly active RNAs can serve as promising tools for understanding the function of genes and their protein products or as potential therapeutic agents.