title: Measuring the tyrosine kinase activity: a review of biochemical and cellular assay technologies.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The increasing number of kinases as potential drug targets, in combination with the need to screen large compound collections, demands the kinase assays to be homogeneous, non-radioactive, robust, sensitive, easy to miniaturize, and high-throughput.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This review will focus on some of the chief biochemical and cellular kinase assay technologies and their applications in tyrosine kinase drug discovery.
  
  
  METHODS
  Recent literatures on these tyrosine kinase assay technologies are reviewed, each assay principle, advantages and drawbacks, as well as their potential utilities in tyrosine kinase drug discovery are discussed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is no perfect assay yet; the choice of assay technology relies on the consideration of many factors including the intrinsic properties of the assay, intended application, cost, timeline, synergy with other in-house assay technologies and the expertise, familiarity and comfort level with certain technologies.
authors.affiliation: Group Leader Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, Department of Kinase Biology, 10675 John J. Hopkins Dr, San Diego, CA 92121, USA +1 858 812 1728 ; +1 858 812 1918 ; yjia@gnf.org.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Xiang-Ju
authors.initials: XJ
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Achim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brinker
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Warmuth