CRISPR-cas9 Screening Identified Lethal Genes Enriched in Cell Cycle Pathway and of Prognosis Significance in Breast Cancer

Human Accelerated Regions regulate gene networks implicated in apical-to-basal neural progenitor fate transitions

The evolution of the human cerebral cortex involved modifications in the composition and proliferative potential of the neural stem cell (NSC) niche during brain development. Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) exhibit a significant excess of human-specific sequence changes and have been implicated in human brain evolution. Multiple studies support that HARs include neurodevelopmental enhancers with novel activities in humans, but their biological functions in NSCs have not been empirically assessed at scale. Here we conducted a direct-capture Perturb-seq screen repressing 180 neurodevelopmentally active HARs in human iPSC-derived NSCs with single-cell transcriptional readout. After profiling >188,000 NSCs, we identified a set of HAR perturbations with convergent transcriptional effects on gene networks involved in NSC apicobasal polarity, a cellular process whose precise regulation is critical to the developmental emergence of basal radial glia (bRG), a progenitor population that is expanded in humans. Across multiple HAR perturbations, we found convergent dysregulation of specific apicobasal polarity and adherens junction regulators, including PARD3, ABI2, SETD2 , and PCM1 . We found that the repression of one candidate from the screen, HAR181, as well as its target gene CADM1 , disrupted apical PARD3 localization and NSC rosette formation. Our findings reveal interconnected roles for HARs in NSC biology and cortical development and link specific HARs to processes implicated in human cortical expansion.

CRISPR-Cas and CRISPR-based screening system for precise gene editing and targeted cancer therapy

Target cancer therapy has been developed for clinical cancer treatment based on the discovery of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat) -Cas system. This forefront and cutting-edge scientific technique improves the cancer research into molecular level and is currently widely utilized in genetic investigation and clinical precision cancer therapy. In this review, we summarized the genetic modification by CRISPR/Cas and CRISPR screening system, discussed key components for successful CRISPR screening, including Cas enzymes, guide RNA (gRNA) libraries, target cells or organs. Furthermore, we focused on the application for CAR-T cell therapy, drug target, drug screening, or drug selection in both ex vivo and in vivo with CRISPR screening system. In addition, we elucidated the advantages and potential obstacles of CRISPR system in precision clinical medicine and described the prospects for future genetic therapy.In summary, we provide a comprehensive and practical perspective on the development of CRISPR/Cas and CRISPR screening system for the treatment of cancer defects, aiming to further improve the precision and accuracy for clinical treatment and individualized gene therapy.

(Nano)platforms in breast cancer therapy: Drug/gene delivery, advanced nanocarriers and immunotherapy

Breast cancer is the most malignant tumor in women, and there is no absolute cure for it. Although treatment modalities including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy are utilized for breast cancer, it is still a life-threatening disease for humans. Nanomedicine has provided a new opportunity in breast cancer treatment, which is the focus of the current study. The nanocarriers deliver chemotherapeutic agents and natural products, both of which increase cytotoxicity against breast tumor cells and prevent the development of drug resistance. The efficacy of gene therapy is boosted by nanoparticles and the delivery of CRISPR/Cas9, Noncoding RNAs, and RNAi, promoting their potential for gene expression regulation. The drug and gene codelivery by nanoparticles can exert a synergistic impact on breast tumors and enhance cellular uptake via endocytosis. Nanostructures are able to induce photothermal and photodynamic therapy for breast tumor ablation via cell death induction. The nanoparticles can provide tumor microenvironment remodeling and repolarization of macrophages for antitumor immunity. The stimuli-responsive nanocarriers, including pH-, redox-, and light-sensitive, can mediate targeted suppression of breast tumors. Besides, nanoparticles can provide a diagnosis of breast cancer and detect biomarkers. Various kinds of nanoparticles have been employed for breast cancer therapy, including carbon-, lipid-, polymeric- and metal-based nanostructures, which are different in terms of biocompatibility and delivery efficiency.

Identification of a novel circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory axis in hepatocellular carcinoma based on bioinformatics analysis

In recent years, circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been found to play an essential regulatory role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) through various mechanisms, particularly the endogenous competitive RNA (ceRNA) mechanism. Therefore, it is significant to explore the circRNAs in hepatoma. In this study, we constructed the ceRNA and survival network using Cytoscape. We also used R, Perl software, and multiple online databases and platforms, including Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), to perform overall survival, immune cell infiltration, immune checkpoints, pathway activity, and anticancer drug sensitivity analysis of the genes. Finally, the receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was performed to identify the diagnosis value of the genes. KEGG analysis revealed the T cell receptor signaling pathway as the main enrichment pathway. A total of 29 genes related to survival and prognosis were screened out. The findings suggest that ZNF544, WDR76, ACTG1, RASSF3, E2F3, ASRGL1, and POGK are associated with multilevel immune cell infiltration. Additionally, immune checkpoint analysis screened out the ACTG1, E2F3, RASSF3, and WDR76. It was also revealed that the WDR76, E2F3, ASRGL1, and POGK mainly activated the cell cycle and DNA damage response (DDR) pathway. The results suggest that the sensitivity toward trametinib, refametinib (RDEA119), and selumetinib correlates to the expression of WDR76. ROC analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of all genes in the regulatory axis was greater than 0.7. The identified hsa_circ_0000417/hsa_circ_0002688/hsa_circ_0001387--hsa-miR-199a-5p--WDR76 regulatory axis may provide new insights into the progression, clinical diagnosis, and treatment of HCC.

Identification of LARS as an essential gene for osteosarcoma proliferation through large-Scale CRISPR-Cas9 screening database and experimental verification

BACKGROUND

Osteosarcoma is one of the most malignant tumors, and it occurs mostly in children and adolescents. Currently, surgery and chemotherapy are the main treatments. The recurrence rate is high and the prognosis is often poor. Finding an effective target gene therapy for osteosarcoma may effectively improve its prognosis.

METHOD

In this study, genes essential for the survival of osteosarcoma cells were identified by genome-wide screening of CRISPR-Cas9 based on the DepMap database. The expression of these essential genes in osteosarcoma patients' tissues and normal tissues was identified in the GSE19276 database. Functional pathway enrichment analysis, protein interaction network construction, and LASSO were performed to construct a prognostic risk model based on these essential genes. CCK8 assay was used to detect the effect of essential gene-LARS (Leucyl-TRNA Synthetase 1) on the proliferation of osteosarcoma.

RESULTS

In this study, 785 genes critical for osteosarcoma cell proliferation were identified from the DepMap. Among these 785 essential genes, 59 DEGs were identified in osteosarcoma tissues. In the functional enrichment analysis, these 59 essential genes were mainly enriched in cell cycle-related signaling pathways. Furthermore, we established a risk score module, including LARS and DNAJC17, screened from these 59 genes, and this module could divide osteosarcoma patients into the low-risk and high-risk groups. In addition, knockdown of LARS expression inhibited the proliferative ability of osteosarcoma cells. A significant correlation was found between LARS expression and Monocytic lineage, T cells, and Fibroblasts.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, LARS was identified as an essential gene for survival in osteosarcoma based on the DepMap database. Knockdown of LARS expression significantly inhibited the proliferation of osteosarcoma cells, suggesting that it is involved in the formation and development of osteosarcoma. The results are useful as a foundation for further studies to elucidate a potential osteosarcoma diagnostic index and therapeutic targets.

A Novel CRISPR/Cas9 Screening Potential Index for Prognostic and Immunological Prediction in Low-Grade Glioma

Glioma is a malignancy with the highest mortality in central nervous system disorders. Here, we implemented the computational tools based on CRISPR/Cas9 to predict the clinical outcomes and biological characteristics of low-grade glioma (LGG). The transcriptional expression profiles and clinical phenotypes of LGG patients were retrieved from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas. The CERES algorithm was used to screen for LGG-lethal genes. Cox regression and random survival forest were adopted for survival-related gene selection. Nonnegative matrix factorization distinguished patients into different clusters. Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis was employed to create a novel CRISPR/Cas9 screening potential index (CCSPI), and patients were stratified into low- and high-CCSPI groups. Survival analysis, area under the curve values (AUCs), nomogram, and tumor microenvironment exploration were included for the model validation. A total of 20 essential genes in LGG were used to classify patients into two clusters and construct the CCSPI system. High-CCSPI patients were associated with a worse prognosis of both training and validation set (p < 0.0001) and higher immune fractions than low-CCSPI individuals. The CCSPI system had a promising performance with 1-, 3-, and 5-year AUCs of 0.816, 0.779, 0.724, respectively, and the C-index of the nomogram model reached 0.743 (95% CI = 0.725–0.760). Immune-infiltrating cells and immune checkpoints such as PD-1/PD-L1 and POLD3 were positively associated with CCSPI. In conclusion, the CCSPI had prognostic value in LGG, and the model will deepen our cognition of the interaction between the CNS and immune system in different LGG subtypes.

Identification of UBE2I as a Novel Biomarker in ccRCC Based on a Large-Scale CRISPR-Cas9 Screening Database and Immunohistochemistry

Background: The genome-wide CRISPR-cas9 dropout screening has emerged as an outstanding approach for characterization of driver genes of tumor growth. The present study aims to investigate core genes related to clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) cell viability by analyzing the CRISPR-cas9 screening database DepMap, which may provide a novel target in ccRCC therapy.

Methods: Candidate genes related to ccRCC cell viability by CRISPR-cas9 screening from DepMap and genes differentially expressed between ccRCC tissues and normal tissues from TCGA were overlapped. Weighted gene coexpression network analysis, pathway enrichment analysis, and protein–protein interaction network analysis were applied for the overlapped genes. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression was used to construct a signature to predict the overall survival (OS) of ccRCC patients and validated in the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and E-MTAB-1980 database. Core protein expression was determined using immunohistochemistry in 40 cases of ccRCC patients.

Results: A total of 485 essential genes in the DepMap database were identified and overlapped with differentially expressed genes in the TCGA database, which were enriched in the cell cycle pathway. A total of four genes, including UBE2I, NCAPG, NUP93, and TOP2A, were included in the gene signature based on LASSO regression. The high-risk score of ccRCC patients showed worse OS compared with these low-risk patients in the ICGC and E-MTAB-1980 validation cohort. UBE2I was screened out as a key gene. The immunohistochemistry indicated UBE2I protein was highly expressed in ccRCC tissues, and a high-level nuclear translocation of UBE2I occurs in ccRCC. Based on the area under the curve (AUC) values, nuclear UBE2I had the best diagnostic power (AUC = 1). Meanwhile, the knockdown of UBE2I can inhibit the proliferation of ccRCC cells.

Conclusion: UBE2I, identified by CRISPR-cas9 screening, was a core gene-regulating ccRCC cell viability, which accumulated in the nucleus and acted as a potential novel promising diagnostic biomarker for ccRCC patients. Blocking the nuclear translocation of UBE2I may have potential therapeutic value with ccRCC patients.

Potential Significance and Clinical Value Explorations of Calmin (CLMN) in Breast Invasive Carcinoma

Objective

Function of calmin (CLMN) was rarely reported in human diseases, especially in tumor. Present study initially assessed the significance of CLMN in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA).

Methods

Expressions of CLMN containing mRNA and protein in BRCA was firstly assessed, and association of CLMN mRNA expression with clinical phenotypes of BRCA patients was analyzed as well. Prognostic value of CLMN in BRCA was subsequently predicted based on the clinical characteristics of patients. Finally, the potential biological function associated with CLMN involved in BRCA was revealed.

Results

(1) The mRNA expression of CLMN was lower in BRCA compared with that in normal patients (P<0.001). However, result of CLMN total protein expression was opposite (P<0.05). (2) The mRNA expression of CLMN was statistically associated with BRCA patient’s age, gender, PR status, ER status, histological type, tumor stage, copy number, and methylation level (all P<0.05). (3) Compared with low expression group, high expression of CLMN was conducive to the overall survival of BRCA patients (P=0.0011). Detailed, survival difference between CLMN high and low expression groups was observed in patients with stage 1 (P=0.0250), positive ER status (P=0.0042), negative HER status (P=0.0433), luminal A (P=0.0065), luminal B (P=0.0123) and positive lymph node status (P=0.0069). Pathway analysis suggested that CLMN mainly participated in cell cycle process (P<0.05) and exerted inhibition effect on the cell cycle involved in BRCA (P<0.05).

Conclusion

CLMN mRNA high expression prolonged the survival time of patients and caused a favorable prognosis. The positive function of CLMN in BRCA required further investigation in future work.