To determine the roles of lipid droplet proteins in C. elegans growth
and fat accumulation, we performed RNAi knockdown using the feeding
method, focusing on the top 100 most abundant C. elegans LD proteins
(Table 1). Of the 37 non-ribosomal/translation factor proteins, we obtained
21 sequence-verified RNAi constructs. Nine out of 21 showed
an RNAi phenotype of arrested growth or sterility. Of the 63 ribosome/
translation factor genes, we knocked down a subset of 18 of them. Of
this class, all 18 resulted in arrested growth. Thus, of the set of 37
genes knocked down using RNAi, we found an enrichment of essential
genes (73%). This is a much higher proportion of essential genes than
have been typically identified in whole genome RNAi screens, revealing
approximately 10% essential genes [45] (Table 1).