Microarray analysis of Caenorhabditis elegans recombinant inbred lines exposed to gld-1 or empty-vector RNAi

The glp-1/NOTCH pathway is a conserved pathway that plays an important role in developmental control. To study the effect of natural genetic variation on perturbations in this pathway, we used N2xCB4856 recombinant inbred lines of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. These were treated with empty vector or gld-1 RNAi, where gld-1 is a key developmental gene in the glp-1/NOTCH pathway. The recombinant inbred lines were exposed for two generation to the treatment and 47 hour old L4 juveniles were collected for RNA isolation. In total 39 RILs were exposed to the empty-vector treatment and 46 RILs were exposed to the gld-1 treatment. Gene expression was quantified using microarrays.