Integrated cross-study datasets of genetic dependencies in cancer

Nat Commun. 2021 Mar 12;12(1):1661. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21898-7.

Abstract

CRISPR-Cas9 viability screens are increasingly performed at a genome-wide scale across large panels of cell lines to identify new therapeutic targets for precision cancer therapy. Integrating the datasets resulting from these studies is necessary to adequately represent the heterogeneity of human cancers and to assemble a comprehensive map of cancer genetic vulnerabilities. Here, we integrated the two largest public independent CRISPR-Cas9 screens performed to date (at the Broad and Sanger institutes) by assessing, comparing, and selecting methods for correcting biases due to heterogeneous single-guide RNA efficiency, gene-independent responses to CRISPR-Cas9 targeting originated from copy number alterations, and experimental batch effects. Our integrated datasets recapitulate findings from the individual datasets, provide greater statistical power to cancer- and subtype-specific analyses, unveil additional biomarkers of gene dependency, and improve the detection of common essential genes. We provide the largest integrated resources of CRISPR-Cas9 screens to date and the basis for harmonizing existing and future functional genetics datasets.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • CRISPR-Cas Systems
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats
  • DNA Copy Number Variations
  • Genes, Essential / genetics
  • Genomics / methods
  • Humans
  • Neoplasms / genetics*
  • RNA, Guide, CRISPR-Cas Systems / genetics

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • RNA, Guide, CRISPR-Cas Systems

Associated data

  • figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5289226.v1