Fly App

Not directly RNAi related but I can't resist posting this.

Kumar S, Boccia K, McCutchan M, Ye J. Exploring spatial patterns of gene expression from Fruit Fly embryogenesis on the iPhone. Bioinformatics. 2012 Aug 24. PubMed PMID: 22923306

Novel Assay: Detecting JH

This paper describes an improved approach to detecting farnesoic acid and juvenile hormone. A starting point for a large-scale in vivo RNAi screen perhaps? Open access paper.

Rivera-Perez C, Nouzova M, Noriega FG. A quantitative assay for the juvenile hormones and their precursors using fluorescent tags. PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e43784. PubMed PMID: 22928033

Breaking Report: dsRNA Uptake

Also on my desk to read today?  This paper, which includes a description of what happens following introduction of C. elegans SID-2 into Drosophila S2 cells.

McEwan DL, Weisman AS, Hunter CP. Uptake of Extracellular Double-Stranded RNA by SID-2. Mol Cell. 2012 Aug 14. PMID: 22902558

Breaking Report: F-Box Protein in vivo RNAi Study

On my desk to read today? An in vivo study in which the researchers systematically tested the effects of knockdown of genes encoding F-box-containing proteins.

Dui W, Lu W, Ma J, Jiao R. A Systematic Phenotypic Screen of F-box Genes Through a Tissue-specific RNAi-based Approach in Drosophila. J Genet Genomics. 2012 Aug 20;39(8):397-413. PMID: 22884096.

Breaking Report: Plasmid Toolset for in vivo Expression or RNAi

On my desk to read today? A report of a set of plasmid vectors useful for in vivo expression of various forms of tagged or untagged genes or RNAi constructs.

Wang JW, Beck ES, McCabe BD. A modular toolset for recombination transgenesis and neurogenetic analysis of Drosophila. PLoS One. 2012;7(7):e42102. Epub 2012 Jul 25. PubMed PMID: 22848718

The authors indicate that the plasmids are available at AddGene.

Related resource: pVALIUM and pWALIUM vectors from the Trangenic RNAi Project (TRiP) at Harvard Med School.