VT (Vienna Tile) GAL4 driver lines are now available through the VDRC

These lines were generated by the Dickson and Stark groups at the IMP, Vienna.

The current VT library consists of >6,000 transgenic Drosophila lines containing short fragments of genomic DNA controlling GAL4 expression. The constructs are integrated at a single defined genomic position (attP2) and each carries a distinct candidate cis-regulatory DNA fragment, typically ∼2kb in size. These lines have been constructed according to the methods developed by the Rubin group at Janelia Farm Research Campus (Pfeiffer et al, 2008, PNAS 105:917) and form a complementary resource to the Janelia collection (Jenett et al, 2012, Cell Reports).

The precise expression patterns of reporters driven by these lines have been extensively documented and annotated, both in the Drosophila adult brain (Dickson group, BrainBase) and spatio-temporally in embryos (unpublished data, Stark group, www.starklab.org).

Your VDRC Team

New VDRC Prices

Dear VDRC users,

The fees for our stocks have remained fixed since Feb 2009, however in order to cover the increased cost of maintaining the libraries in the last 3.5 years, we unfortunately have to increase our prices. The increased fees will come into effect as of 1st October 2012.

The new fee structure is as follows:

This price increase is purely to recover costs since the VDRC is a not-for-profit organisation. Currently approximately half of the VDRC operating costs are covered by user fees, the other half by funding from the Austrian Federal Government (bm.wf) and the City of Vienna.

Your VDRC Team

Efficient RNA knockdown in the germline with VDRC RNAi lines

Dear VDRC users,

The VDRC long hairpin RNAi constructs are not only functional in the somatic cells, but also in the germline - with the appropriate drivers!

In a direct comparison of transcript knockdown efficiencies and phenotypes in the female germline, both the long hairpin construct design (VDRC RNAi lines with Dicer-2) and short hairpin constructs give similarly strong results, as the following publication from Julius Brennecke’s lab elegantly shows:"A systematic analysis of Drosophila TUDOR domain-containing proteins identifies Vreteno and the Tdrd12 family as essential primary piRNA pathway factors." Handler et al (2011) abstract. See figure 2.

Additionally, Wang and Elgin have demonstrated efficient knockdown of Piwi functions in the female germline using VDRC RNAi lines with Dicer-2:"Drosophila Piwi functions downstream of piRNA production mediating a chromatin-based transposon silencing mechanism in female germ line." Wang and Elgin (2011) abstract.

Your VDRC Team

New Head of the VDRC

Dear VDRC users,

As of March 2012 Lisa Meadows has officially taken over from Krystyna Keleman as Head of the VDRC. Lisa has more than 20 years of experience working with Drosophila and is looking forward to continuing the success achieved to date by Krystyna and the VDRC team.

Your VDRC Team

VDRC database update to Flybase release 5.38

Dear VDRC users,

As of October 5th of 2011, the VDRC database will be updated to the Flybase version 5.38 (FB2011_06), released in June 2011. All information about transformant IDs, construct IDs, CG-Numbers, FB-Numbers and synonyms will be adjusted to the new version.

Your VDRC Team

10000th shipment celebration

Dear VDRC users,

Every day we ship our flies on a journey to laboratories in the whole world. On 29th of June the fly-team celebrated an important event: the 10 000th shipment from VDRC! For this reason the whole team met at 11 am at Vienna’s green zone – the Prater,  from where we ‘hiked’ to the famous Schweizerhaus –a Viennese restaurant where already the emperor dined- and had a few drinks and Wiener Schnitzel.

Your VDRC Team