Short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are powerful sequence-specific reagents that suppress gene expression in mammalian cells. We report for the first time that gene silencing of endothelial E-selectin by siRNAs leads to successful inhibition of leukocyte-endothelial interaction under flow. siRNAs designed to target human E-selectin were tranfected into human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). Western blotting analysis revealed that transfection of these siRNAs, but not the scrambled control siRNA (100 nM each), attenuated E-selectin expression in HUVEC activated with TNF-alpha (10 ng/ml, 4h) without affecting expression of ICAM-1. Moreover, a leukocyte adhesion assay under flow (shear stress = 1.0 dyne/cm(2)) demonstrated that HUVEC transfected with a siRNA against E-selectin (siE-01) supported significantly less HL60 adhesion as compared to those transfected with the control siRNA (scE-01) after activation (p < 0.03). This technique provides a powerful strategy to dissect a specific function of a given molecule in leukocyte-endothelial interaction. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.