The blockade of highly active gene variants associated with breast cancer, such as HER2, is a standard approach to combating the disease. But proteins that are not mutated or overexpressed may also be crucial to a cancer cell's ability to survive.
Christopher Lord and his team at the Institute of Cancer Research in London used RNA interference screening — which silences individual genes by interfering with protein synthesis — on a panel of 20 breast-cancer cell lines. These lines represented all the major subtypes of the disease, offering a chance to find tumour-specific vulnerabilities and potential drug targets.
The authors uncovered a series of novel Achilles heels for particular tumour cell lines, including the reliance of cells deficient in the protein PTEN on TTK kinase, and the sensitivity of oestrogen-receptor-positive breast-cancer cells to the loss of the kinase ADCK2.
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Breast-cancer weaknesses found. Nature 476, 8–9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/476008e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/476008e
