5' ITR: 5' inverted terminal repeat. In wild type virus, 5' ITR and 3' ITR are essentially identical in sequence. They reside on two ends of the viral genome pointing in opposite directions, where they serve as the origin of viral genome replication.
U6 Promoter: Drives expression of the shRNA. This is the promoter of the human U6 snRNA gene, an RNA polymerase III promoter which efficiently expresses short RNAs.
Sense, Antisense: These sequences are derived from your target sequences, and are transcribed to form the stem portion of the “hairpin” structure of the shRNA.
Loop: This optimized sequence is transcribed to form the loop portion of the shRNA “hairpin” structure.
Terminator: Terminates transcription of the shRNA.
CMV promoter: Human cytomegalovirus immediate early promoter. It drives the ubiquitous expression of the downstream marker gene.
Marker: A drug selection gene (such as neomycin resistance), a visually detectable gene (such as EGFP), or a dual-reporter gene (such as EGFP/Neo). This allows cells transduced with the vector to be selected and/or visualized.
SV40 late pA: Simian virus 40 late polyadenylation signal. It facilitates transcriptional termination of the upstream ORF.
3' ITR: 3' inverted terminal repeat. See description for 5’ ITR.
Ampicillin: Ampicillin resistance gene. It allows the plasmid to be maintained by ampicillin selection in E. coli.
pUC ori: pUC origin of replication. Plasmids carrying this origin exist in high copy numbers in E. coli.