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Copyright © 2004, The National Academy of Sciences Developmental Biology Genes required for Drosophila nervous system development identified by RNA interference †Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; and §Department of Biophysical Genetics, Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medicine, 13-1 Taramachi Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-8640, Japan To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mnirenberg/at/nih.gov. ‡A.I.I., A.C.R., P.P., and S.Y. contributed equally to this work. Contributed by Marshall Nirenberg, October 4, 2004 This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.Abstract RNA interference was used to screen 3,314 Drosophila double-stranded RNAs, corresponding to ≈25% of Drosophila genes, for genes that affect the development of the embryonic nervous system. RNA-interference-mediated gene silencing in Drosophila embryos resulted in loss-of-function mutant phenotypes for 43 genes, which is 1.3% of the genes that were screened. We found 18 genes that were not known previously to affect the development of the nervous system. The functions of some of the genes are unknown. Other genes encode protein kinases, transcription factors, and signaling proteins, as well as proteins with other functions. Keywords: embryonic nervous system, neural mutants, neural development Injection of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) in Caenorhabditis elegans or early Drosophila embryos results in destruction of the complementary species of mRNA by a process termed RNA interference (RNAi) (1, 2). An endonuclease, termed Dicer, catalyzes the cleavage of dsRNA into short segments of duplex RNA, each segment with 19 base pairs and two unpaired nucleotides at each end. The short dsRNA fragments bind to a multiprotein complex termed RISC, the RNA strands are unwound, and the antisense strand of RNA hybridizes to a complementary sequence in mRNA, thereby targeting that molecule of mRNA for destruction (3-5). Therefore, RNAi is a powerful tool that can be used to silence specific genes. In vertebrates, RNAi also is mediated by short dsRNA fragments of 12 nt in length; however, exposure of cells to long-chain dsRNA results in cell death (6, 7). RNAi has been used successfully to screen large numbers of genes in C. elegans (8), Drosophila embryos (9), and Drosophila cell cultures (10, 11) to identify genes that are involved in biological phenomena, such as the cell cycle (8), cell growth and survival (10), cytoskeletal rearrangements (11), embryonic heart development (9), and the hedgehog (12) and wingless (13) signaling pathways. In this article, we describe the screening of a library of dsRNAs corresponding to ≈25% of the Drosophila genome for their effects on the development of the embryonic nervous system. Materials and Methods dsRNA Synthesis. We synthesized 5,849 cDNAs from the Drosophila embryo, head, larvae, and ovary (cDNA Set 1 collection, Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project consortium, available at www.bdgp.org) from the corresponding recombinant plasmids by PCR amplification. We used primers based on vector sequences surrounding the DNA inserts and a T3, T7, or Sp6 RNA polymerase initiation site, and cDNAs were purified by filtration using the QIAquick system (Qiagen, Valencia, CA) in a 96-well format, followed by ethanol precipitation. For cDNAs cloned in the pOT2 vector, primer sequences were as follows: 5′-ATTTAGGTGACACTATAGAACTCG-3′ and 5′-AAATTAATACGACTCACTATAGGG-3′. For cDNAs in the pBlueScript SK(-) vector, primers were as follows: 5′-GCGCAATTAACCCTCACTAAAGGG-3′ and 5′-TAATACGACTCACTATAGGGCGAA-3′. Purified PCR products were used for sense and antisense RNA synthesis by using T7, T3, or Sp6 MegaScript kits (Ambion, Austin, TX) according to the manufacturer's instructions and adapted to a 96-well format. Synthesized complementary RNA transcripts were then pooled, deproteinized with phenol saturated with an aqueous solution of sodium acetate, extracted with chloroform, and precipitated by ethanol at -20°C, yielding a pellet that was suspended in 400 μl of injection buffer (5 mM KCl/0.1 mM NaH2PO4, pH 7.8). Samples to be annealed were heated for 5 min at 90°C, allowed to cool to room temperature (4 h), and then precipitated with one volume of isopropanol. The resulting pellet was dissolved in 40 μl of injection buffer. Aliquots (1 μl) from each sample were used at a 1:100 to 1:200 dilution for agarose gel electrophoresis analysis of dsRNA, and sample absorbances were read at 260 and 280 nm. Pictures of dsRNA separated on agarose gels were compared for consistency of size with similar pictures of the corresponding PCR-amplified cDNAs. Additional dsRNAs corresponding to predicted Drosophila mRNAs for protein kinases, protein phosphatases, some phosphatases and cyclases, and some dsRNA that failed to be synthesized starting from cDNAs in the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project consortium cDNA collection were gifts from Philip Beachy and Lawrence Lum (The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore), and they were synthesized as described (12). The resulting library of dsRNAs corresponded to 4,923 genes; 3,314 genes were screened in this study. Embryo Injection and Immunohistochemistry. Drosophila melanogaster, Oregon R, or yw strains were used. Freshly laid fertilized eggs were collected on agar-juice plates for 40-60 min, washed with water, and aligned on a microscope slide without dechorionization. Embryos were allowed to dry briefly to enable them to stick to the slide, and embryos were then covered with halocarbon oil 27 (Sigma). Capillaries for microinjection were prepared by using a PN-30 N micropipette puller (Narishige, Tokyo), and tips were opened by using a EG-400 microgrinder (Narishige). Embryos at the preblastoderm stage were injected with ≈100 pl of dsRNA, ≈1 μg/μl (0.1 ng) injected dsRNA, or pools of three dsRNA species (each at 1 μg/μl in 100 pl) by using a FemtoJet injection apparatus (Eppendorf) and incubated 24 h at 18°C to allow development to embryonic stage ≈15-16. Immunohistochemistry was performed by using a modification of the standard rapid protocol (14) that was adapted to a 96-multiwell format by using Durapore membrane filter plates (Multiscreen-DV, Millipore). The mAbs (culture media) that recognize subsets of neurons in the embryonic CNS and peripheral nervous system (PNS) were obtained from the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank at the University of Iowa (Iowa City) and were used as follows: mAb 22C10 (anti-futsch), 1:100 dilution, for both CNS and PNS neuron and axon subsets (15); mAb BP102, 1:100 dilution, to label some CNS axons (16); and mAb 1D4 (anti-FasII), 1:100 dilution, to stain some motor neurons and their axons (17). Ab-antigen complexes were detected by using biotinylated anti-mouse IgG (Vector Laboratories) and the Vectastain Elite ABC and DAB substrate kits (Vector Laboratories). The morphology of injected embryos and patterns of Ab staining were inspected by using bright-field microscopy. Micro-photographs were taken by using an Axioplan microscope (Zeiss) equipped with a Photometrics Coolsnap HQ monochrome camera (Roper Scientific, Trenton, NJ; resolution, 1,392 × 1,040 pixels) and Micro*Color tunable RGB (red-green-blue) filters for digital imaging (Cambridge Research and Instrumentation, Woburn, MA). Digital images were acquired with IP LAB software (Scanalytics, Fairfax, VA) and further processed with photoshop (Adobe Systems, San Jose, CA). Results and Discussion RNAi Screen for Genes Involved in Nervous System Development. RNAi-based gene silencing was used to identify genes affecting the embryonic development of the Drosophila nervous system. Early Drosophila embryos were injected with dsRNA, incubated to allow development to embryonic stage 15 or 16, fixed, incubated with mAbs directed against subsets of neurons in the nervous system, and then incubated with a secondary Ab directed against mouse IgG to which horseradish peroxidase had been covalently coupled to visualize the nervous system. The staining pattern of the ventral nerve cord (VNC) of a wild-type Drosophila embryo stained with mAb BP102, which stains the anterior and posterior commisures and longitudinal connectives of the VNC, is shown in Fig. 1 A and B
To validate the screening strategy, we examined the ability of dsRNA injected into early embryos to reduce the levels of proteins that are known to be expressed in the embryonic nervous system and to reproduce phenotypes that are well described for genetic mutations. Injection of engrailed, embryonic lethal abnormal vision (elav), prospero, or FasII dsRNAs into embryos resulted in marked reductions in the respective protein levels, as shown by immunostaining with the corresponding Abs (see Fig. 5 A-H, which is published as supporting information on the PNAS web site). Injection of commissureless dsRNA into preblastoderm embryos resulted in embryos that lacked most commissures (Fig. 1G Injection of embryos with buffer alone usually resulted in ≈10 ± 5% of the stained embryos with defects in the structure of the nervous system. Each embryo was injected with ≈100 pl of solution containing dsRNA. However, injection of an embryo with ≥150 pl of buffer resulted in a much higher percentage of embryos with false-positive mutant nervous system phenotypes. Very conservative criteria were used for evaluating neural mutant phenotypes, such as disruption of the structure of the CNS and/or PNS, or loss or gain of neurons. For each experiment, at least 50-100 embryos were injected with dsRNA, and only dsRNAs resulting in mutant phenotypes in >50% of the injected embryos were selected as candidates for further analysis. To eliminate false positives and determine whether the mutant phenotypes were reproducible, the candidate dsRNAs were injected into embryos in three to six or more experiments by two or more investigators. Only when ≥50% of injected embryos exhibited a mutant phenotype in reproducible experiments was a species of dsRNA stated to result in an RNAi-dependent mutant phenotype of the nervous system. Mutant phenotypes with penetrance of <50% were not considered further. Genes Affecting the Embryonic Nervous System. A summary of the data is shown in Table 1. We screened 3,314 genes, which is ≈25% of the Drosophila genome, by RNAi and found 43 genes that affect the development of the embryonic nervous system (i.e., 1.3% of the tested dsRNAs). Loss-of-function mutant phenotypes that had not been reported previously were found for 18 genes. These mutant phenotypes are shown in Figs. Figs.2,2
RNAi-induced mutant phenotypes for eight genes whose functions are unknown are shown in Fig. 2 RNAi-induced mutant phenotypes for five dsRNAs corresponding to protein kinase genes are shown in Fig. 3 Injection of Bx42 dsRNA in early embryos resulted in severe hypoplasia and disorganization of the CNS and PNS in stage-13 embryos (Fig. 4 A and B A summary of the 18 genes found by RNAi that exhibit novel mutant phenotypes that affect the development of the nervous system is given in Table 2. Suppression of 25 additional genes by RNAi resulted in “known” mutant phenotypes of the nervous system. The commissureless and Notch RNAi mutant phenotypes are shown in Fig. 1 G and H
RNAi mutant phenotypes for dsRNAs corresponding to Bazooka, shotgun, three rows, Cyclin A, and cut up are shown in Fig. 8. A summary of the 43 genes found by RNAi that affect the development of the nervous system is given in Table 3, which is published as supporting information on the PNAS web site. Additional photomicrographs of many mutant RNAi embryos and periodic updates on the RNAi screening are available at http://flyembryo.nhlbi.nih.gov/flyembryo. Similar RNAi-dependent mutant phenotypes were found with some genes. For example, similar mutant phenotypes were found with patched, a hedgehog receptor (50), smoothened, and casein kinase Iα, which function in the hedgehog signal transduction pathway (43). Similarly, genes in the Notch pathway (i.e., Notch, Delta, bigbrain, echinoid, and mastermind), with the exception of Su(H), resulted in the expected hypertrophic PNS. In conclusion, genes were found in this study that, directly or indirectly, affect the development of the nervous system. Some of the most interesting genes that were found have unknown functions, whereas other genes encode proteins of known function that were not previously known to affect the development of the embryonic nervous system. Further studies are required to determine how these genes affect the development of the nervous system. Supporting Information
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