Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Breaking Report & on Small Libraries

On my desk today? A report from Ardehali et al. (2009) Spt6 enhances the elongation rate of RNA polymerase II in vivo. EMBO Journal.

Protocol Notes: They screened a set of 141 candidate transcription factors in S2 cells. Not clear to me what dsRNAs they used (their own? is in supplement?). Screen follow-up using a transgenic RNAi fly line (670-bp Spt6 fragment amplified and cloned "head-to-head" into pWIZ).

Makes me think about: A couple of things available at the DRSC. 

First, we have a Transcription Factor sub-library set that contains more than 900 putative transcription factors. Why so many? The list is generous with its definition of a TF. 

If you catch us before we have the downloadable list of genes in the set up on the website, no problem, drop me an email and I'll send the file--we openly share the gene lists.

Second, although you might be interested to screen a small library of candidates, we recognize that making those dsRNAs may be new to you. And a hurdle you're not anxious to jump. To help out we are now offering a custom dsRNA small library production service. 

Send us your gene list (one or a few 96-well plates worth) or a list of our amplicon IDs. We'll cherry-pick the corresponding PCR amplicons in our collection. And use those as template to make up a fresh batch of dsRNA in whatever plate format you'd like. We'll provide enough dsRNA for several assays. 

We announced the custom dsRNA service at the fly conference and have done two pilot projects (3 96-well plates each). But it's not up on our website as of this posting. Drop me an email if you're interested to know the fee or have questions.

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