Small activating RNAs (saRNAs) are an emerging class of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) that are capable of activating gene expression at transcriptional level. The saRNAs are small double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) that bind to promoter sequences in order to activate the expression of target genes. These molecules are structurally similar to small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), i.e., they also have a size of 21 nucleotides and two overhang nucleotides at the 3' end of both strands.
