RNA interference (RNAi) is a recently developed technology that can be used to manipulate specific signaling pathways in a transient manner and therefore direct specific differentiation patterns in stem cells. It can also be used to determine function of various proteins in proliferation, differentiation or apoptosis pathways in a cell. In this study, RNAi was used to down regulate 2-microglobulin and OCT4 in human embryonic stem cells (HESCs) and also nucleostemin in bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells. Results revealed that OCT4 is required to maintain the undifferentiated stem cell state and in the absence of OCT4, HESCs differentiate to trophectoderm. It was also shown that knocking down the expression of nucleostemin significantly decreased rate of proliferation in rat bone marrow stem cells in an apparently P53 independent manner.

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