A genome-scale shRNA resource for transgenic RNAi in Drosophila

Existing transgenic RNAi resources in Drosophila utilize the expression of long double stranded hairpin RNAs and are powerful tools for the identification and characterization of genes involved in various processes. However, they are ineffective to knockdown genes during oogenesis, an important model system for the study of numerous fundamental questions in biology. Here, we show that short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs), modeled on an endogenous microRNA, are extremely effective at silencing gene expression during oogenesis. We also describe our progress towards building a genome-wide shRNA resource. Total RNA was isolated using Trizol reagent (Invitrogen) and size-fractionated by PAGE. These were independently processed and sequenced using the Illumina GAII platform. In total, three libraries were analyzed.