Alic, N;
Hoddinott, MP;
Foley, A;
Slack, C;
Piper, MD;
Partridge, L;
(2012)
Detrimental effects of RNAi: a cautionary note on its use in Drosophila ageing studies.
PLOS One
, 7
(9)
, Article e45367. 10.1371/journal.pone.0045367.
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Abstract
RNA interference (RNAi) provides an important tool for gene function discovery. It has been widely exploited in Caenorhabditis elegans ageing research because it does not appear to have any non-specific effects on ageing-related traits in that model organism. We show here that ubiquitous, adult-onset activation of the RNAi machinery, achieved by expressing a double stranded RNA targeting GFP or lacZ for degradation, or by increasing expression of Dicer substantially reduces lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster. Induction of GFPRNAi construct also alters the response of lifespan to nutrition, exacerbating the lifespan-shortening effects of food containing a high quantity of yeast. Our study indicates that activation of the RNAi machinery may have sequence-independent side-effects on lifespan, and that caution needs to be exercised when employing ubiquitous RNAi in Drosophila ageing studies. However, we also show that RNAi restricted to certain tissues may not be detrimental to lifespan.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Detrimental effects of RNAi: a cautionary note on its use in Drosophila ageing studies |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0045367 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045367 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © Alic et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This work was funded by the Wellcome Trust and Max Planck (L.P.) and Excellence in Life Sciences (EMBO) and Marie Currie Fellowships (N.A.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1370027 |
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