Double-stranded RNA injection produces nonspecific defects in zebrafish

We have investigated the ability of dsRNA to inhibit gene functions in zebrafish using sequences targeted to the maternal gene pouII-1, the transgene GFP, and an intron of the zebrafish gene terra. We found that embryos injected with all of these dsRNAs at approximately 7.5 pg/embryo or higher had general growth arrest during gastrulation and displayed various nonspecific defects at 24 h postfertilization, although embryonic development was unaffected before the midblastula stage. Reducing dsRNA concentration could alleviate the global defects. Injection of GFP dsRNA (7.5-30 pg/embryo) did not inhibit GFP expression in transgenic fish, although abnormal embryos were induced. Co-injection of GFP mRNA with either GFP or non-GFP dsRNA caused reduction of GFP expression. Whole-mount in situ hybridization clearly showed that embryos injected with dsRNA degraded co-injected and endogenous mRNA without sequence specificity, indicating that dsRNA has a nonspecific effect at the posttranscriptional level. It appears that RNAi is not a viable technique for studying gene function in zebrafish embryos.