Ouch! That's hot.

On my desk today? Report of an in vivo screen for genes involved in heat avoidance.

Neely et al. (2010) A genome-wide Drosophila screen for heat nociception identifies alpha-2-delta-3 as an evolutionarily conserved pain gene. Cell 143(4):628-38. PMID: 21074052

Breaking Reports: Full-Genome RNAi on cell spreading & a Library Evaluation

On my desk today? Catching up on breaking reports from two different groups--one is a full-genome cell-based RNAi screen and the other a comparative report on genome-wide libraries.

D'Ambrosio & Vale (2010) A whole genome RNAi screen of Drosophila S2 cell spreading performed using automated computational image analysis. J Cell Bio 191(3):471-8. PMID: 21041442.

Horn et al. (2010) Design and evaluation of genome-wide libraries for RNA interference screens. Genome Biol. 11(6):R61. PMID 20550664.

Web Wednesday: RNAi Select

Following up on a recent post--breaking paper on dsRNA design--here's the link to the tool reported in the paper.

http://www.rnaiselect.info/dsrna/

Breaking Report: piRNAs

On my desk to read today? A report on the RNA biology of piRNAs, that includes work using dsRNA-based knockdown of piwi in cultured cells.

Haase et al. (2010) Probing the initiation and effector phases of the somatic piRNA pathway in Drosophila. Genes Dev. 2010 Oct 21. [Epub ahead of print]

Breaking Report: Limiting Off-Target Effects

Also on my desk today? An informatics analysis and tool for further limiting potential off-target effects in dsRNA design.

Seinen et al. (2010) RNAi Experiments in D. melanogaster: Solutions to the Overlooked Problem of Off-Targets Shared by Independent dsRNAs. PLoS One. 2010 Oct 1;5(10). pii: e13119.

Breaking Report: DRSC screen for modifiers of Notch transcriptional activity

On my desk today? A report of a screen performed using the DRSC full-genome library.

Mourikis et al. (2010) Modifiers of notch transcriptional activity identified by genome-wide RNAi. BMC Developmental Biology. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-213X/10/107

Breaking Report: Myc study points to dHCF

Also on my desk today? Another cell-based RNAi screen report, this one looking at activation of Myc target genes.

Furrer et al. (2010) Drosophila Myc interacts with Host Cell Factor (dHCF) to activate transcription and control growth. J Biol Chem. 2010 Oct 11. [Epub ahead of print]