Multidimensional variable dose analysis (mVDA) is a novel method for high-throughput mapping of genetic interactions

The mapping of genetic interactions is a powerful tool to determine gene functions, assemble the structures of biological pathways and to identify therapeutic targets for disease. However, while there have been significant advances in the screening techniques used to identify genetic interactions over the past decade, methods that are sufficiently scalable to test genetic interactions on a genome level are still far from our current capabilities. Here, we describe an approach to genetic interaction screening in Drosophila cells that overcomes the scaling issues associated with most other methods. This method, called multidimensional Variable Dose Analysis (mVDA), allows multiple, random genes to be inhibited within each cell of a mixed population and the relative phenotypes caused by each gene or pair of genes to be deconvoluted. This means that reagent library size and cell population size do not scale exponentially with the number of genes to be tested, unlike previous methods. This method therefore has the potential to allow genome wide mapping of genetic interactions in Drosophila cells for the first time.