Differential Gene Expression in a Patient-Derived Xenograft from transduction of cells with shRNA targeting CDK19 and CDK8. Homo sapiens

When CDK19 was initially discovered, it was assumed that CDK19 played a redundant role to CDK8 because they share 84% amino acid sequence similarity. However, biological clues such as CDK19s different chromosomal location and its more limited tissue distribution suggested a role distinct from CDK8 To investigate whether CDK19 and CDK8 had distinct biological functions in Triple-Negative breast cancer, we knocked down CDK19 and CDK8 in a patient-derived xenograft (PDX-C69) and examined differences in the resulting gene expression. Overall design: EpCAM enriched PDX-C69 cells were infected with shRNA targeting CDK19, shRNA targeting CDK8, 'empty vector' control shRNA and grown in organoid culture conditions for 72 hours