Screening for Genes Regulating TGF-β-Induced Apoptosis

TGF-β signaling has been extensively studied, and as such provided a good model system to assess the performance of Cellecta’s shRNA screening library. TGF-β, a multifunctional extracellular cytokine, inhibits cell proliferation by arresting cell cycle progression and inducing apoptosis; however, it can also promote metastasis and angiogenesis in some cancer cells. This acquired resistance to the growth-inhibitory function suggests disruption of the TGF-β apoptotic mechanism by genetic alternations that inactivate the signal transduction genes in the pathway.