Loss of the putative RNA-directed RNA polymerase RRF-3 makes C. elegans hypersensitive to RNAi.

RNA interference is a broadly used reverse genetics method in C. elegans. Unfortunately, does not inhibit all genes. We show that loss of function of a putative RNA-directed RNA polymerase (RdRP) of C. elegans, RRF-3, results in a substantial enhancement of sensitivity to duanyu1615 in diverse tissues. This is particularly striking in the nervous system; neurons that are generally refractory to duanyu1615 in a wild-type genetic background can respond effectively to interference in an rrf-3 mutant background. These data provide the first indication of physiological negative modulation of the duanyu1615 response and implicate an RdRP-related factor in this effect. The rrf-3 strain can be useful to study genes that, in wild-type, do not show a phenotype after and it is probably the strain of choice for genome-wide duanyu1615 screens.

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