This is critical to investigate the function of specific amino acids in a protein, e.g. in the active site of an enzyme. RNAi RNA interference (RNAi) methods can be used to transiently silence or knockdown gene expression using ~20 base-pair double-stranded RNA typically delivered by transfection of synthetic ~20-mer short-interfering RNA molecules (siRNAs) or by virally encoded short-hairpin RNAs (shRNAs). RNAi screens, typically performed in cell culture-based assays or experimental organisms (such as C. elegans) can be used to systematically disrupt nearly every gene in a genome or subsets of genes (sub-genomes); possible functions of disrupted genes can be assigned based on observed phenotypes. CRISPR screens CRISPR-Cas9 has been used to delete genes in a multiplexed manner in cell-lines. Quantifying the amount of guide-RNAs for each gene before and after the experiment can point towards essential genes. If a guide-RNA disrupts an essential gene it will lead to the loss of that cell and hence there will be a depletion of that particular guide-RNA after the screen. In a recent CRISPR-cas9 experiment in mammalian cell-lines, around 2000 genes were found to be essential in multiple cell-lines. Some of these genes were essential in only one cell-line. Most of genes are part of multi-protein complexes. This approach can be used to identify synthetic lethality by using the appropriate genetic background. CRISPRi and CRISPRa enable loss-of-function and gain-of-function screens in a similar manner. CRISPRi identified ~2100 essential genes in the K562 cell-line. CRISPR deletion screens have also been used to identify potential regulatory elements of a gene. For example, a technique called ScanDel was published which attempted this approach. The authors deleted regions outside a gene of interest(HPRT1 involved in a Mendelian disorder) in an attempt to identify regulatory elements of this gene. Gassperini et al. did not identify any distal regulatory elements for HPRT1 using this approach, however such approaches can be extended to other genes of interest. Functional annotations for genes Genome annotation Putative genes can be identified by scanning a genome for regions likely to encode proteins, based on characteristics such as long open reading frames, transcriptional initiation sequences, and polyadenylation sites. A sequence identified as a putative gene must be confirmed by further evidence, such as similarity to cDNA or EST sequences from the same organism, similarity of the predicted protein sequence to known proteins, association with promoter sequences, or evidence that mutating the sequence produces an observable