Figure 4

Targeting pro-labour genes with antisense morpholino oligonucleotides. (A) Diagram to show mechanism of action of morpholino oligonucleotides (MOs) in targeting nuclear pre-mRNA. Binding of (MOs) to the 5' and 3' splice site boundaries blocks access by splicing factors (SF) to the splice sites and redirects the splicing machinery to skip out the exon. This results in a shortened mRNA transcript and a truncated protein or no protein. (B) Effect of MOs targeted to the pre-mRNA of exon 4 of the COX-2 gene. Substantial inhibition by MOs of COX-2 protein expression, induced by LPS, was observed at the protein level, means ± S.E.M. (n = 6). (C) Loss of enzyme activity due to MOs inhibition was also determined; this assay measures COX-2 activity by calculating the rate of conversion of arachidonic acid to PGH₂ [18]. Data shown as % inhibition. Data are mean ± S.E.M. (n = 6).