TY - JOUR
T1 - Novel genomic cDNA hybrids produce effective RNA interference in adult Drosophila
AU - Kalidas, Savitha
AU - Smith, Dean P.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Tamara Elmore for helping to characterize the OR83b promoter; Mike Socolitch and Rama Ranganathan for assistance with the ERG studies; and Al Gilman, Charles Zuker, Tom Südhof, and members of the Smith lab for reviewing the manuscript. This work was supported by NIH DC02539 and by the American Heart Association, EI0040029N.
PY - 2002/1/17
Y1 - 2002/1/17
N2 - Drosophila melanogaster has been a premier genetic model system for nearly 100 years, yet lacks a simple method to disrupt gene expression. Here, we show genomic cDNA fusions predicted to form double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) following splicing, effectively silencing expression of target genes in adult transgenic animals. We targeted three Drosophila genes: lush, white, and dGqα. In each case, target gene expression is dramatically reduced, and the white RNAi phenotype is indistinguishable from a deletion mutant. This technique efficiently targets genes expressed in neurons, a tissue refractory to RNAi in C. elegans. These results demonstrate a simple strategy to knock out gene function in specific cells in living adult Drosophila that can be applied to define the biological function of hundreds of orphan genes and open reading frames.
AB - Drosophila melanogaster has been a premier genetic model system for nearly 100 years, yet lacks a simple method to disrupt gene expression. Here, we show genomic cDNA fusions predicted to form double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) following splicing, effectively silencing expression of target genes in adult transgenic animals. We targeted three Drosophila genes: lush, white, and dGqα. In each case, target gene expression is dramatically reduced, and the white RNAi phenotype is indistinguishable from a deletion mutant. This technique efficiently targets genes expressed in neurons, a tissue refractory to RNAi in C. elegans. These results demonstrate a simple strategy to knock out gene function in specific cells in living adult Drosophila that can be applied to define the biological function of hundreds of orphan genes and open reading frames.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0896-6273(02)00560-3
DO - 10.1016/S0896-6273(02)00560-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 11804566
AN - SCOPUS:0037122913
SN - 0896-6273
VL - 33
SP - 177
EP - 184
JO - Neuron
JF - Neuron
IS - 2
ER -