C. elegans animals were washed off plates with M9 buffer and collected in 15 ml conical tubes. After centrifugation, the worm pellets were washed three times with M9 buffer to remove bacteria.
Trizol (Takara Bio) was added to the worm pellets, which after vortexing were placed in liquid nitrogen and thawed at 37°C for 6 times. After that, total RNA was extracted following the instructions of the manufacturer (Takara Bio). Two micrograms of total RNA were used for cDNA synthesis using the Oligo-d(T)
15 primer. Real-time PCR analysis was performed on the
rpl-26, ced-1 and
psr-1 genes using the
CFX96 Real-Time PCR Detection System (Bio-Rad) and
iTaq Universal SYBR Green Supermix reagents (Bio-Rad). PCR reactions were run in triplicate and three independent experiments were performed. The mean mRNA level of the housekeeping gene
rpl-26 was used as a control to normalize the variability in expression levels. Primer sequences used in real-time PCR reactions were:
rpl-26 forward primer 5’ ATGAAGGTCAAT-CCGTTCGT 3’ and reverse primer 5’ AGGACACGTCCAGTGTTTCC 3’;
ced-1 forward primer 5’ CTGCAATTGGCTGCTGCCATGTAGA 3’ and reverse primer 5’AGACCATTGGGTGGTCCTCCTTGAT 3’; and
psr-1 forward primer 5’ CATGC-GAAGGACAAAGCGAG 3’ and reverse primer 5’ CGAAATCTCGGCGGAACTCC 3’.
Yang H., Chen Y.Z., Zhang Y., Wang X., Zhao X., Godfroy JI I.I.I., Liang Q., Zhang M., Zhang T., Yuan Q., Royal M.A., Driscoll M., Xia N.S., Yin H, & Xue D. (2015). A lysine-rich motif in the phosphatidylserine receptor PSR-1 mediates recognition and removal of apoptotic cells. Nature communications, 6, 5717.