Short vs. long hairpins in fly RNAi

Bartoletti R, Capozzoli B, Moore J, Moran J, Shrawder B, Vivekanand P. Short hairpin RNA is more effective than long hairpin RNA in eliciting pointed loss-of-function phenotypes in Drosophila. Genesis. 2017 Jul;55(7). PMID: 28464429.

From the abstract: "Pointed (Pnt) is a transcriptional activator ... As mutations in pnt perturb the development of several tissues, we wanted to examine the effect and efficacy of using RNAi to target Pnt. We have expressed pnt RNAi in the eyes, oocyte, and heart cells using three different RNAi lines: Valium20, Valium10, and VDRC. Valium20 is distinct since it generates a short hairpin RNA (shRNA), while Valium10 and VDRC produce long hairpin dsRNA. We found that for each tissue examined Valium20 exhibited the strongest phenotype while the Valium10 and VDRC lines produced varying levels of severity and that the long hairpin RNA produced by the Valium10 and VDRC lines are unable to effectively knockdown pnt in embryonic tissues."