RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 E. coli OxyS non-coding RNA does not trigger RNAi in C. elegans JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 013029 DO 10.1101/013029 A1 Alper Akay A1 Peter Sarkies A1 Eric A. Miska YR 2014 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/12/19/013029.abstract AB The discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) in C. elegans has had a major impact on scientific research, led to the rapid development of RNAi tools and has inspired RNA-based therapeutics. Astonishingly, nematodes, planaria and many insects take up double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from their environment to elicit RNAi; the biological function of this mechanism is unclear. Recently, the E. coli OxyS non-coding RNA was shown to regulate gene expression in C. elegans when E. coli is offered as food. This was surprising given that C. elegans is unlikely to encounter E. coli in nature. To directly test the hypothesis that the E. coli OxyS non-coding RNA triggers the C. elegans RNAi pathway, we sequenced small RNAs from C. elegans after feeding with bacteria. We clearly demonstrate that the OxyS non-coding RNA does not trigger an RNAi response in C. elegans. We conclude that the biology of environmental RNAi remains to be discovered.