BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Expanding the kinase kingdom

October 30, 2008 7:00 AM UTC

Researchers at Harvard Medical School, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital have applied loss-of-function small hairpin RNA screens to various human cell lines to identify kinases that are essential for cell proliferation and survival.1-4 The approach could substantially expand the number of kinases targeted in cancer.

Loss-of-function shRNA screens are often used to investigate various cell biological processes, such as NF-kB signal transduction, proteasome function, p53 signal transduction, modulation of RAS function, modulation of mitosis and mammary cell transformation.5-10...