Drug-Induced Haploinsufficiency of Fission Yeast Provides a powerful Tool for Identification of Drug Targets

Genome-wide systematic deletion mutants were generated using a PCR-based targeted mutgenesis of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. In a drug-sensitivity assay using thiabendazole, an inhibitor of microutubule assembly, a heterozygous nda2 mutant, deleting one copy of nda2 encoding the microtubule subunit alpha1 demonstrated a distinct sensitivity to TBZ, indicating TBZ- induced haploinsufficiency. This result suggests that profiling drug-induced haploinsufficiency can be exploited to identify target genes for drugs and discover new drugs