Inducing RNAi in Drosophila cells by soaking with dsRNA

RNA interference (RNAi) triggered by synthetic long double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) has been applied in many Drosophila cell lines to study the functions of individual genes or for genome-wide scans. One contributor to the popularity of this approach is that many fly cell lines spontaneously take up dsRNAs from media, obviating the need for assisted uptake methods such as transfection. In this protocol, RNAi is induced in Drosophila S2 cells by soaking with dsRNA. Cell lines other than S2 can also be used, although the ability of each line to passively take up dsRNA does vary. Therefore, the efficiency of passive uptake should be carefully verified for each line.