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Synthetic essentiality: Targeting tumor suppressor deficiencies in cancer

Di Zhao1, Ronald A DePinho1

  • 1Department of Cancer Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.

Bioessays : News and Reviews in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
|July 5, 2017
PubMed

Insights

Synthetic essentiality offers a new strategy for cancer therapy by identifying genes crucial for tumors with specific tumor suppressor deficiencies. This approach leverages large cancer genome datasets to find new therapeutic targets.

Area of Science:

  • Oncology
  • Genomics
  • Computational Biology

Background:

  • Targeting specific tumor suppressor gene deficiencies in cancer is a key challenge.
  • Existing therapeutic strategies like oncogene addiction and synthetic lethality have limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review the novel concept of "synthetic essentiality" for targeting cancer vulnerabilities.
  • To explore how synthetic essentiality can be used to identify context-specific therapeutic targets.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing extensive public cancer genome and clinical databases.
  • Analyzing large-scale genome datasets and genome-scale functional screens.
  • Identifying genes essential in the context of specific tumor suppressor deficiencies.

Main Results:

  • Synthetic essentiality can identify genes occasionally deleted in some cancers but retained when tumor suppressor genes are deficient.
  • This framework expands upon existing therapeutic concepts.
  • It provides a method for discovering cancer-specific vulnerabilities.

Conclusions:

  • Synthetic essentiality offers a promising framework for identifying novel cancer-specific therapeutic targets.
  • It facilitates the development of patient responder hypotheses for existing and new therapies.
  • This approach is enabled by advancements in large-scale genomic data and functional screening.
Keywords:
cancer genomecancer therapycancer-specific vulnerabilitiessynthetic essentialitysynthetic lethalitytumor suppressor deficiency

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