Table Info

Table 1.

Advantages and limitations of different protein silencing techniques

Technology	Target	Advantages	Disadvantages
RNAi	RNA	Can be used for either short-term or long-term silencing effect Supports both synthetic or genetic delivery methods to target cell Cost-effective and easy to use Can be used for inducible genetic knockdown	High off-target effect Mostly provide partial knockdown of target Activation of compensatory pathway Not effective for proteins with long half-life
CRISPR-Cas9	DNA	Gene editing with a complete knockout of a gene or a gene segment Precision Irreversible process High feasibility	Time-consuming Essential gene knockouts are lethal Difficult to aim larger proteins Off-target effect generating indels
Targeted protein knockdown	Protein	Directly eliminates target protein Can target essential or undruggable proteins Rapid, hence low chances of compensatory activation Less chance of immune response	Tedious design and synthesis challenge Expensive

Technology

Target

Advantages

Disadvantages

RNAi

RNA

Can be used for either short-term or long-term silencing effect
Supports both synthetic or genetic delivery methods to target cell
Cost-effective and easy to use
Can be used for inducible genetic knockdown

High off-target effect
Mostly provide partial knockdown of target
Activation of compensatory pathway
Not effective for proteins with long half-life

CRISPR-Cas9

DNA

Gene editing with a complete knockout of a gene or a gene segment
Precision
Irreversible process
High feasibility

Time-consuming
Essential gene knockouts are lethal
Difficult to aim larger proteins
Off-target effect generating indels

Targeted protein knockdown

Protein

Directly eliminates target protein
Can target essential or undruggable proteins
Rapid, hence low chances of compensatory activation
Less chance of immune response

Tedious design and synthesis challenge
Expensive

Declarations

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge institutional infrastructure support useful for this work.

Author contributions

AD: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. MJ: Formal analysis, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. PD: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Not applicable.

Consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent to publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Funding

Not applicable.

Copyright

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