Chemical intervention in signalling networks: recent advances and applications†

Chemical intervention in biological systems is a field undergoing explosive growth, and a growing number of applications in signal transduction have evolved from the rich variety of small molecule and other chemical tools now available for selective modulation of cellular processes. The key enabling factor for the majority of recent discoveries has been close collaboration between chemists and cell biologists, bringing together expertise in the development and application of novel and biologically-relevant chemistry and an understanding of where these techniques can be brought to bear for greatest effect. The core technologies of chemical genetics, diversity oriented synthesis, high-throughput screening and microarray technologies have recently been used in various combinations to shed light on an impressive diversity of areas, including neural lipid and auxin signalling, membrane protein co-localisation, protein kinase engineering, and imaging signalling-related processes. While further innovation is required to demonstrate the full potential for selective chemical intervention to complement and to a degree supersede pure genetic approaches, it will continue to stimulate ground-breaking research, in both chemistry and biology, for many years to come.