In vivo CRISPR screens reveal potent driver mutations in head and neck cancers

Sampath Kumar Loganathan; Daniel Schramek

doi:10.1080/23723556.2020.1758541

In vivo CRISPR screens reveal potent driver mutations in head and neck cancers

Mol Cell Oncol. 2020 May 13;7(4):1758541. doi: 10.1080/23723556.2020.1758541. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Sampath Kumar Loganathan¹, Daniel Schramek^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Molecular and Systems Biology, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
² Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

We have recently tested the transforming potential of 484 'long-tail' genes, which are recurrently albeit infrequently mutated in head and neck cancers (HNSCC). We identified 15 novel tumor suppressors and our top hits converge on regulating the NOTCH signaling pathway. Therapeutic approaches activating NOTCH signaling could be a promising strategy to treat two-thirds of human HNSCC patients.

Keywords: HNSCC; Notch; in vivo CRISPR; long-tail genes; mouse models of cancer.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Krembil Foundation; Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) [CIHR 365252].