Synchronous populations of worms were grown at 20°C on NGM plates supplemented with a 2 µm filtered IPTG solution to obtain a final concentration of 1 mM and seeded with E. coli HT115 bacteria expressing GFP dsRNA or control E. coli bacteria OP50 (control) as concentrated food. Worms were grown at a density of maximum 40,000 animals per 15 cm Petri dish and harvested at Young Adult stage at 48 hours post hatching. The harvested animals were washed three times with M9 buffer and 40 µl of worm pellet was frozen in dry ice with TRI Reagent (MRC, Inc.). After five repetitions of freeze and thaw, total RNA was isolated according to the TRI Reagent protocol. The small RNA library preparation was performed essentially as described previously by Barucci et al., 2020.