What is "sarna"

Särna is a locality situated in Älvdalen Municipality, Dalarna County, Sweden with 719 inhabitants in 2010.

Small activating RNAs (saRNAs) are small double-stranded RNAs ( dsRNAs) that target gene promoters to induce transcriptional gene activation in a process known as RNAa.

Small dsRNAs, such as small interfering RNAs ( siRNAs) and microRNAs ( miRNAs),are known to be the trigger of an evolutionary conserved mechanism known as RNA interference (RNAi). RNAi invariably leads to gene silencing via remodeling chromatin to thereby suppress transcription, degrading complementary mRNA, or blocking protein translation. Later it was found that that dsRNAs can also act as saRNA. By targeting selected sequences in gene promoters, saRNAs induce target gene expression at the transcriptional/epigenetic level.

saRNAs are typically 21 nucleotides in length with 2 nucleotides overhang at the 3' end of each strand, the same structure of a typical siRNA. To identify a saRNA that can activate a gene of interest, several saRNAs need to be designed within a 1- to 2-kb promoter region by following a set of rules and tested in cultured cells. In some reports, saRNAs are designed in such a way to target non-coding transcripts that overlap the promoter sequence of a protein coding gene. Both chemically synthesized saRNAs and saRNAs expressed as shRNA have been used in in vitro and in vivo experiments.

Therapeutic use of saRNAs has been tested in animal models to treat cancer, liver disease, ischemia, and erectile dysfunction.

In 2016, a phase I clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02716012) was launched for the saRNA drug MTL-CEBPA, the fist of its kind, to treat liver cancer.

Sarna is a Polish surname. Notable people with the surname include:

• Nahum Sarna, American Bible scholar
• Jonathan Sarna, American historian
• Paweł Sarna (canoer) (born 1984), Polish slalom canoer
• Paweł Sarna (poet) (born 1977), Polish writer

Sarna is an Indian surname of Punjabi origin. Notable people with the surname include:

• Navtej Sarna, Indian author-columnist, diplomat
• Mohinder Singh Sarna, also known as S. Mohinder, Indian music director