Small (18-30) nucleotide RNA sequencing of paramutated Drosophila lines

Some paramutation phenomena in many species has been shown to be dependent on small non-coding RNAs, most notably in nematode worms, plants and Drosophila. Here we investigate whether small non-coding RNAs are implicated in a previously described case of paramutation in Drosophila melanogaster triggered by changes in the contacts between different chromosomal regions leading to stable epigenetic silencing of a transgene. We used high throughput sequencing to test whether there were any changes in small RNAs mapping to the transgene that might implicate their involvement in this process.