Combinatorial RNA interference in Caenorhabditis elegans reveals that redundancy between gene duplicates can be maintained for more than 80 million years of evolution

Table 4 C. elegans duplicate gene pairs with at least partially redundant functions

Interaction Gene1 + Gene2	Gene1		Gene2		Gene1 + 2		p value
	BS	ES	BS	ES	BS	ES	BS	ES
pab-1 + pab-2	15	100	88	100	0	ns	1.9 × 10^-04	ns
rpl-25.2 + rpl-25.1	6	50	17	63	0	ns	3.6 × 10^-04	ns
ptr-2 + ptr-10	^a	53	^a	98	^a	ns	^a	ns
unc-78 + tag-216	85	96	98	97	0	ns	6.4 × 10^-15	ns
rab-8 + rab-10	87	98	70	96	1	ns	7.3 × 10^-05	ns
B0495.2 + ZC504.3	84	99	97	99	2	55	6.3 × 10^-09	2.9 × 10^-03
rpa-2 + C37A2.7	67	74	50	81	1	ns	1.9 × 10^-07	ns
C28H8.4 + erd-2	93	95	86	94	10	10	5.6 × 10^-08	2.2 × 10^-15
lin-12 + glp-1	90	88	99	83	16	75	1.2 × 10^-13	7.3 × 10^-01
C13G3.3 + W08G11.4	73	94	80	97	17	89	1.6 × 10^-06	3.5 × 10^-01
lin-53 + rba-1	74	63	48	5	16	75	1.1 × 10^-02	7.3 × 10^-17
Y53C12A.4 + R02E12.2	84	81	78	87	32	75	1.3 × 10^-03	6.9 × 10^-01
F37C12.7 + acs-17	95	100	77	98	44	73	9.4 × 10^-03	4.2 × 10^-06
C05G5.4 + F23H11.3	96	100	94	98	58	72	5.1 × 10^-06	1.5 × 10^-08
elt-6 + egl-18	100	97	82	88	63	73	4.0 × 10^-02	6.3 × 10^-03
dsh-1 + dsh-2	97	98	75	54	58	17	1.6 × 10^-02	1.1 × 10^-11

C. elegans duplicate gene pairs (Interaction Gene1 + Gene2) displaying synthetic phenotypic effects upon combinatorial RNA interference (RNAi) in the RNAi-hypersensitive strain rrf-3 [19] are listed. Numbers shown are percentages of average wild-type brood size (BS) and embryonic survival (ES) rates for each gene individually (Gene1 or Gene2) as well as for duplicate gene pairs (Gene1 + 2), and are the arithmetic mean of two independent biological repeats. p values were assigned using a Student's t-test. ^aNote that combinatorial RNAi against the duplicate gene pair ptr-2 + ptr-10 resulted in an increased number of first generation larval growth arrested worms, rather than in reduced brood size; fraction of population which is wild-type (does not arrest at an early larval stage): 70% (ptr-2), 100% (ptr-10), 0% (ptr-2 + ptr-10), p = 7.4 × 10^-09. ns, given phenotype could not be scored.

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