of an anti-p53 Morpholino along with the experimental Morpholino. Moreover, the p53-mediated apoptotic effect of a Morpholino knockdown has been phenocopied using another antisense structural type, showing the p53-mediated apoptosis to be a consequence of the loss of the targeted protein and not a consequence of the knockdown oligo type. It appears that these effects are sequence-specific; as in most cases, if a Morpholino is associated with non-target effects, the 4-base mismatch Morpholino will not trigger these effects. A cause for concern in the use of Morpholinos is the potential for "off-target" effects. Whether an observed morphant phenotype is due to the intended knockdown or an interaction with an off-target RNA can often be addressed in embryos by running another experiment to confirm that the observed morphant phenotype results from the knockdown of the expected target. This can be done by recapitulating the morphant phenotype with a second, non-overlapping Morpholino targeting the same mRNA, by confirmation of the observed phenotypes by comparing with a mutant strain (though compensation will obscure a phenotype in some mutants), by testing the Morpholino in a null mutant background to detect additional phenotypic changes or by dominant-negative methods. As mentioned above, rescue of observed phenotypes by coinjecting a rescue mRNA is, when feasible, a reliable test of specificity of a Morpholino. Delivery For a Morpholino to be effective, it must be delivered past the cell membrane into the cytosol of a cell. Once in the cytosol, Morpholinos freely diffuse between the cytosol and nucleus, as demonstrated by the nuclear splice-modifying activity of Morpholinos observed after microinjection into the cytosol of cells. Different methods are used for delivery into embryos, into cultured cells or into adult animals. A microinjection apparatus is usually used for delivery into an embryo, with injections most commonly performed at the single-cell or few-cell stage; an alternative method for embryonic delivery is electroporation, which can deliver oligos into tissues of later embryonic stages. Common techniques for delivery into cultured cells include the Endo-Porter peptide (which causes the Morpholino to be released from endosomes), the Special Delivery system (no longer commercially available, used a Morpholino-DNA heteroduplex and an ethoxylated polyethylenimine delivery reagent), electroporation, or scrape loading. Delivery into adult tissues is usually difficult, though there are a few systems allowing useful uptake of unmodified Morpholino oligos (including uptake into muscle cells with Duchenne muscular dystrophy or the vascular endothelial cells stressed during balloon