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Genomics

Distinguishing drivers from passengers

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 9, page 11 (2009)Cite this article

Scott Lowe and colleagues previously created a mosaic mouse model of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by introducing genetic mutations into cultured embryonic liver progenitor cells and retransplanting the modified cells into the livers of recipient mice. This allowed them to create HCCs with different oncogenic lesions and thus monitor the contribution of different mutations to tumorigenesis.

Now, the authors describe a new approach that screens this mouse model using an RNAi library that is targeted against putative tumour suppressor genes identified from regions that are commonly deleted in human HCC. Importantly, this method enables rapid and large-scale screening of potential tumour suppressor genes because pools of short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) that are targeted against many genes can be introduced into liver cells and can successfully knock down a multitude of genes.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Zender, L. et al. An oncogenomics-based in vivo RNAi screen identifies tumor suppressors in liver cancer. Cell 13 Nov 2008 (doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2008.09.061)

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Authors
  1. Meera Swami
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Swami, M. Distinguishing drivers from passengers. Nat Rev Cancer 9, 11 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc2566

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