Welcome to the Silencing Genomes Projects Website

Silencing Genomes includes all the bioinformatics and molecular genetic manipulations needed to inactivate any C. elegans gene by RNAi, beginning "from scratch" with only DNA sequence information. The bioinformatic tools and experiments are described in Experiment 7 (PDF file) on the Silencing Genomes website.

Projects begin with selecting candidate genes by researching human genes of interest and using BLAST to identify related homologs in C. elegans. Online tools are then used to design PCR primers for a portion of each target C. elegans gene.

The resulting PCR product is ligated into an RNAi feeding vector that expresses dsRNA against the target gene. After confirming proper construction by mini-prep and restriction analysis, the recombinant vector is transformed into E. coli to create an RNAi feeding strain. Finally, C. elegans grown on the feeding strain are assessed for morphological, biochemical, or behavioral changes in phenotype.

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