 Nat Methods. Author manuscript; available in PMC Apr 8, 2008.
Published in final edited form as: Published online Dec 16,
2007. doi:  10.1038/nmeth1146 PMCID: PMC2290002  Vector and
parameters for targeted transgenic RNA interference in
Drosophila melanogaster    Transgenic RNA interference (RNAi)
has emerged as an important method for analyzing gene function
in D. melanogaster and has joined the already rich arsenal of
tools available for functional genomic studies in this
organism1. The method relies on the Gal4–upstream activating
site (UAS) system2 to control the expression of a gene fragment
that is dimerized to produce a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)
hairpin structure, which then triggers a sequence-specific post-
transcriptional silencing and RNAi response. Tissue- or cell-
specific expression of the transgenic RNAi constructs is
achieved after a cross between UAS-hairpin and Gal4 driver
lines. The main advantage of the method, in addition to its
relatively simple design and fast execution time, is that i