Identifying regulators of aberrant stem cell and differentiation activity in colorectal cancer using a dual endogenous reporter system

Autor: Sandor Spisak, David Chen, Pornlada Likasitwatanakul, Paul Doan, Zhixin Li, Pratyusha Bala, Laura Vizkeleti, Viktoria Tisza, Pushpamali De Silva, Marios Giannakis, Brian Wolpin, Jun Qi, Nilay S. Sethi
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nature Communications, Vol 15, Iss 1, Pp 1-16 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2041-1723
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46285-w
Popis: Abstract Aberrant stem cell-like activity and impaired differentiation are central to the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). To identify functional mediators of these key cellular programs, we engineer a dual endogenous reporter system by genome-editing the SOX9 and KRT20 loci of human CRC cell lines to express fluorescent reporters, broadcasting aberrant stem cell-like and differentiation activity, respectively. By applying a CRISPR screen targeting 78 epigenetic regulators with 542 sgRNAs to this platform, we identify factors that contribute to stem cell-like activity and differentiation in CRC. Perturbation single cell RNA sequencing (Perturb-seq) of validated hits nominate SMARCB1 of the BAF complex (also known as SWI/SNF) as a negative regulator of differentiation across an array of neoplastic colon models. SMARCB1 is a dependency and required for in vivo growth of human CRC models. These studies highlight the utility of biologically designed endogenous reporter platforms to uncover regulators with therapeutic potential.
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