High throughput screening of tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistant genes in CML

Genome-wide RNA interference (RNAi) screening in mammalian cells has proven to be a powerful tool for identifying new genes and molecular pathways relevant to many cellular processes and diseases. For example, screening for genes that, when inactivated, lead to resistance to cancer therapeutic drugs can reveal new mechanisms for how resistance develops, and identify potential targetable strategies to overcome drug resistance. Here, we describe a detailed procedure for performing a high throughput RNAi screen using a genome-wide human short hairpin RNA (shRNA) library for identifying tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI)-resistance genes in a human CML cell line model.