COLT-Cancer

COLT-Cancer enables genome-scale identification of genes essential for cancer cell survival and proliferation using pooled lentiviral shRNA screening.

Key Features:

• Extensive Gene Coverage: Utilizes a comprehensive lentiviral shRNA library targeting approximately 16,000 human genes for genome-wide functional perturbation.
• Diverse Cancer Cell Lines: Contains screening data from more than 70 cancer cell lines, including breast, pancreatic, and ovarian cancer models.
• Advanced Scoring Approach: Applies a dedicated scoring method to identify essential genes from pooled shRNA screen data.
• Laboratory Information and Management System (LIMS): Captures and tracks detailed information from each step of the standardized pooled shRNA screening pipeline.
• Gene-Centric Querying: Enables exploration of shRNA activities and gene-level responses within individual cell lines and across multiple cell lines.
• Visualization of Performance Data: Provides visualization of shRNA- and gene-level performance metrics across cancer cell lines for comparative analysis.

Scientific Applications:

• Therapeutic Target Identification: Identifies genes critical for cancer cell viability that can serve as candidate therapeutic targets.
• Drug Discovery and Development: Supports prioritization of vulnerabilities for development of targeted cancer therapies.
• Functional Genomics and Hypothesis Generation: Supplies a functional genetic map to generate and validate hypotheses about gene function in cancer biology.

Methodology:

High-throughput pooled shRNA screening using a lentiviral shRNA library followed by processing of resulting data through a scoring system to identify essential genes.