Sequencing 22G small RNAs in WT and zsp-1(-) animals

To explore how ZSP-1 (and therefore Z granules) might contribute to germline RNAi, we asked if zsp-1(-) animals were able to produce 22G siRNAs in response to dsRNA exposure. We exposed wild-type and zsp-1(-) animals to dsRNA targeting the germline-expressed gene oma-1 and sequenced the resultant oma-1 22G siRNAs. We identified similar numbers of oma-1 siRNAs anti-sense to oma-1 after oma-1 RNAi on wild-type or zsp-1(-) animals. We also used this dataset to identify genes with differential level of targeted 22G siRNAs level in zsp-1(-) versus WT animals. Overall design: Small RNAs of ~18-35 nucleotides from WT or zsp-1(-) animals were sequenced with NextSeq500, in duplicate.