The role of SHIP in growth factor induced signalling

The recently cloned, hemopoietic-specific, src homology 2 (SH2)-containing inositol phosphatase, SHIP, is rapidly gaining prominence as a potential regulator of all phosphatidylinositol (PI)-3 kinase mediated events since it has been shown both in vitro and in vivo to hydrolyze the 5′ phosphate from phosphatidylinositol-3,4,5-trisphosphate (PI-3,4,5-P₃). Thus SHIP, and its more widely expressed counterpart, SHIP2, could play a central role in determining PI-3,4,5-P₃ and PI-3,4-P₂ levels in many cell types. To explore the in vivo function of SHIP further we recently generated a SHIP knock out mouse and in this review we discuss experiments carried out with bone marrow derived mast cells (BMMCs) from these animals.