RNAi dissects signal pathway First use of high-throughput
RNAi screening in a lab setting reveals novel components By
Cathy Holding
In the first published real use of high-throughput RNAi
screening in a laboratory setting, a group of researchers at
the University of California, San Francisco, has identified
novel negative and positive regulators of a Drosophila
melanogaster signal transduction pathway.
Edan Foley and Patrick O'Farrell report their study of
Drosophila's innate immune defense system in the June
22 PLoS Biology. To dissect the pathway, the team
created a library of 7216 double-stranded Drosophila
RNAs that interfered with most of the phylogenetically
conserved genes.
The authors identified numerous components of signal
transduction, including negative and positive regulators of
innate immune signaling, a hierarchy of gene action, and a
novel gene, sickie-required for activation of a key
component of the pathway, Relish.
"These double-stranded RNA messages are really powerful-and
particularly powerful and easy to use in Drosophila,"
O'Farrell said. "We can make any double-stranded RNA, pretty
much, and we just pipette it on top of the cells and it
inactivates the genes." He added that a graduate student
might spend 5 or 6 years identifying one gene, isolating it
and studying it, "and we have in several cases conducted
entire screens in less than a month."
Read the rest at The Scientist.com
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