Expression analysis of WS4303 (wild type) vs WS5041 (mir-58 mutants) total mRNA. Caenorhabditis elegans

To discover new miRNA targets, we generated a C. elegans transgenic line expressing a functional N-terminally Tandem Affinity Purification (TAP) tagged ALG-1 protein (C. elegans strain WS4303). We crossed the TAP::ALG-1 transgene into the mir-58(n4640) mutant background to generate the strain WS5041. For simplicity, we will hereafter term the TAP::ALG-1 transgenic animals as “wild type” and the transgenic WS5041 animals as “mir-58”. In addition to immunopurifying the TAP::ALG-1 and associated RNAs from these strains, we also compared total mRNA levels between these two strains. Overall design: Total RNA was isolated from the same WS4303 and WS5041 total extracts that was further used for the TAP::ALG-1 RIP. Three independent biological replicates were analyzed. Long-oligo whole-genome C. elegans arrays, produced by the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University in St. Louis (http://genome.wustl.edu/genome/celegans/microarray/ma_gen_info.cgi), were used for these experiments. A total of 10 µg of total RNA was used for cDNA synthesis.