Kinases and Phosphatases in Neurite Growth

The signaling molecule screen is to test kinases and phosphatases. We have tested 724 unique RefSeq accession numbers including 309 phosphotransferases (250 protein kinases), 124 esterases (67 protein phosphatases), and 43 phosphatase/kinase related proteins. We have also screened 47 shRNAs to protein kinases and kinases adaptors. While this screen has identified a much higher percentage of genes with significant effects on neurite growth than the two screens, with about 40 strong hits, it is interesting that many kinases and phosphatases have little effect on neuronal differentiation as assessed in our 2-3 day cultures.

Protein Kinases screened in hippocampal neurons in culture. Each box on the dendrogram represents a kinase screened by at least one unique construct. The dendrogram is from Cell Signaling and adapted from Manning et al. Science, 298:1912, 2002