RNAi Stock Validation & Phenotypes

 

RSVP Rationale

It is frustrating, and more importantly, wasteful of time and resources, to do a test with a given reagent or stock, determine that the stock is not useful, and later learn that information about the poor quality of the stock was already available from another source. For classical genetic analysis in Drosophila, the comprehensive, high-quality and user-friendly “Red Book” (i.e. Lindsley and Zimm’s “The Genome of Drosophila melanogaster”) was for a long time the go-to source for information about genetic mutations in the fly. This resource made it possible for researchers to make best use of available genetic reagents and be aware of caveats or issues surrounding an unfamiliar strain.

Similarly, the Transgenic RNAi Project (the TRiP) at Harvard Medical School has generated fly stocks carrying RNAi hairpins for an estimated 42% of known Drosophila genes. Here, our goal is to ultimately provide quality controlled data for all of the TRiP RNAi stocks: the RNAi Stock Validation and Phenotypes or RSVP website. This site provides experimental data on TRiP lines from 4 sources: 1. Completed and ongoing experiments by members of the Perrimon lab and their collaborators, 2. Data provided by the worldwide fly community, 3. Data provided by feedback from Flybase, the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center and curated published papers, and 4. Quality controlled experiments being carried out by the TRiP at HMS.

 

RSVP Support

The TRiP/RSVP is supported by a grant from the NIH/NIGMS, RO1-GM084947. The ultimate aim of this award is to provide the Drosophila community with a quality-annotated, and comprehensive in vivo RNAi resource that will foster both single gene studies and larger-scale screens, greatly facilitating the ability of researchers to address fundamental biological questions.

 

If use of any of the TRiP reagents results in data that is included in a manuscript for publication, the TRiP requests that a version of the following statement be included in the Acknowledgements section: "We thank the TRiP at Harvard Medical School (NIH/NIGMS R01-GM084947) for providing transgenic RNAi fly stocks and/or plasmid vectors used in this study."