Using transgenic RNAi in Drosophila

It's been a while since I last blogged about peer-reviewed science.  In a recent Departmental Journal Club, I discussed a paper outlining the use of transgenic RNAi in Drosophila.  In this paper, the authors utilise the power of Drosophila transgenics to use RNAi mediated gene knockdown to identify components of an important developmental signalling pathway.

In contrast to other systems, such as mammalian cell culture systems, in which RNAi mediated knockdown of gene expression is mediated by the introduction of short double-stranded RNA molecules, in Drosophila researcher use longer double stranded RNA molecules.  There are two method of using RNAi to investigate gene function in Drosophila.

Firstly, and in parallel to mammalian cell culture techniques, dsRNA may be synthesised in vitro and introduced into cultured cells by standard transfection techniques.  This is  powerful method to screen for phenotypes involving

Secondly, we can use the organism's system to synthesise dsRNA from templates introduced by the well-established P element transformation system widely used in Drosophila research.  By using the Gal4-UAS system, the expression of interfering dsRNA can be manipulated in finely tuned spatiotemporal patterns.