RNAi Biology

What's on my desk today? A summary in Nature Reviews Mol Cell Bio of two recent papers describing an alternative miRNA pathway entitled Dispensable Dicer (A. Heinrichs). It's tough--our understanding of RNA biology is growing quickly--but I like to try to keep on top of the biological phenomena that underly what we exploit for our research.

The two papers discussed in the brief highlight:

• Cheloufi, S. et al. (2010) A Dicer-independent miRNA biogenesis pathway that requires Ago catalysis. Nature 465, 584–589.
• Cifuentes, D. et al. (2010) A novel miRNA processing pathway independent of Dicer requires Argonaute2 catalytic activity. Science 6 May 2010 (doi:10.1126/science.1190809).

Meeting Announcement: Brains in Spain

Just saw this announcement so I thought I'd pass it along: ESF-EMBO's Functional Neurobiology in Minibrains: From Flies to Robots and Back Again will be happening in the autumn. Website indicates that a limited number of travel grants are available for students and early-career researchers. Participation by applicants only and the deadline to apply is in August.

Breaking Report: Host-Pathogen Interactions

What's on my desk today? A just-published, open access report from Akimana et al. (2010) based on a screen performed at the DRSC.

Akimana et al. (2010) Host Factors Required for Modulation of Phagosome Biogenesis and Proliferation of Francisella tularensis within the Cytosol. PLoS One. 2010 Jun 11;5(6):e11025. PMID: 20552012

Visualizing S2 Cells

When I can figure out how to 'visualize' the full report, I'm looking forward to checking out a new video from Buster et al. (2010) Preparation of Drosophila S2 cells for Light Microscopy. J Vis Exp. Jun 3;(40). pii: 1982. doi: 10.3791/1982.

Today & Tomorrow

On my desk today? A review of in vivo RNAi just out from members of our sister-group, the Transgenic RNAi Project (TRiP): Perrimon et al. (2010) in vivo RNAi: Today and Tomorrow. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. PMID: 20534712

Breaking Report: Fly RNAi Methods

On my desk today?

Haley et al. (2010) Vectors and parameters that enhance the efficacy of RNAi-mediated gene disruption in transgenic Drosophila. PNAS. PMID: 20534445.

Breaking Report: Chemical Screen in Fly Cells

What's on my desk this morning? A report from the Eggert lab on a chemical screen performed similar to a cell-based RNAi screen, and including knockdown of Rho in all cells by RNAi.

Castoreno et al. (2010) Small molecules discovered in a pathway screen target the Rho pathway in cytokinesis. Nat. Chem. Biol. 6(6):457-63. PMID 20436488.

(For further reading, see also Eggert et al. (2004) PLoS Biol. Dec;2(12):e379. Parallel chemical genetic and genome-wide RNAi screens identify cytokinesis inhibitors and targets. Describes the results of RNAi screening performed at the DRSC and a chemical screen.)