Discovery of Synthetic Lethal Paralog Pairs in the Human Genome

Discovery of Synthetic Lethal Paralog Pairs in the Human Genome

alt text
Presented by
Phoebe Parrish
Phoebe Parrish
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
RECORDED AT Writing the Future of Drug Discovery

Covered in this Webinar
How single gene knockout phenotypes can be masked by redundancy among related genes
Development of pgPEN, a pooled CRISPR-Cas9 single and double knockout approach targeting over 2,000 human paralogs
Results finding that 12% of human paralogs exhibit synthetic lethality in at least one context

CRISPR screens have accelerated the discovery of important cancer vulnerabilities. However, single gene knockout phenotypes can be masked by redundancy among related genes. To address this issue we developed pgPEN, a pooled CRISPR-Cas9 single and double knockout approach targeting over 2,000 human paralogs. We applied pgPEN to two cell lines and discovered that 12% of human paralogs exhibit synthetic lethality in at least one context. We recovered known synthetic lethal paralogs MEK1/MEK2, important drug targets CDK4/CDK6, and other synthetic lethal pairs including CCNL1/CCNL2. These findings nominate drug targets to help expand targeted therapy options for cancer. 

Share your details to Watch the Webinar