We are excited to report the publication of a paper from Benjamin Housden and colleagues describing development and use of the Variable Dose Analysis (VDA) approach. Ben developed a way to use existing TRiP shRNA plasmids originally developed for fly stock production in a new, effective approach to high-throughput cell screening.

The VDA approach is particularly useful for combinatorial approaches that are acutely sensitive to assay robustness. The screen Ben and colleagues report focused on synthetic effects in Drosophila tumor model cells.  The approach should be generally applicable to similar high-throughput screens in other cell types.

The DRSC provides support for VDA screening in Drosophila cells. Please contact the Director for more information or to begin discussing a screen assay.

Housden BE, Li Z, Kelley C, Wang Y, Hu Y, Valvezan AJ, Manning BD, Perrimon N. Improved detection of synthetic lethal interactions in Drosophila cells using variable dose analysis (VDA). Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Nov 28. pii: 201713362. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1713362114. PMID: 29183982.