Le criblage à Roscoff. Une recherche d'inhibiteurs de kinases tournée vers la mer.

Since the early 1970’s, investigators at Station Biologique de Roscoff (SBR), France, have been using marine organisms as models to des- cribe molecular pathways conserved through evolution in mammalian cells (e.g. the cyclin-dependent kinases involved in the control of the cell division cycle). Some kinases are misregulated in various human pathologies, including cancers. Using a specialized screening approach, chemical libraries were analysed, using on-site facilities at Roscoff, in order to identify small chemical inhibitors of protein kinases. Eight chemical scaffolds produced by marine organisms were characterized as candidate drugs by our screening facility, some of which are being considered as chemical tools to pinpoint specific cel- lular functions of the targeted kinases. In this review, we describe our existing screening facilities and we discuss new perspectives related to marine bioprospecting.