Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 31, 2025
Genome-Wide CRISPR Screen for Unveiling Radiosensitive and Radioresistant Genes
Published on: May 23, 2025
CRISPR Screens to Identify Regulators of Tumor Immunity
Martin W LaFleur1,2, Arlene H Sharpe1,2
1Department of Immunology and Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract:
Cancer immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), have been used in a wide range of tumor types with immense clinical benefit. However, ICB does not work in all patients, and attempts to combine ICB with other immune-based therapies have not lived up to their initial promise. Thus, there is a significant unmet need to discover new targets and combination therapies to extend the benefits of immunotherapy to more patients. Systems biology approaches are well suited for addressing this problem because these approaches enable evaluation of many gene targets simultaneously and ranking their relative importance for a phenotype of interest. As such, loss-of-function CRISPR screens are an emerging set of tools being used to prioritize gene targets for modulating pathways of interest in tumor and immune cells. This review describes the first screens performed to discover cancer immunotherapy targets and the technological advances that will enable next-generation screens.
Insights
New CRISPR screens identify novel targets for cancer immunotherapy, aiming to improve treatments like immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) for more patients. These systems biology approaches help prioritize genes for better therapeutic strategies.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Immunology
- Genomics
- Systems Biology
Background:
- Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) offers significant clinical benefits for various cancers.
- Limitations in ICB efficacy and combination therapy outcomes highlight the need for novel therapeutic targets.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review emerging loss-of-function CRISPR screens for discovering new cancer immunotherapy targets.
- To explore how systems biology approaches can prioritize gene targets for enhancing immunotherapy.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing loss-of-function CRISPR screens to systematically evaluate gene targets in tumor and immune cells.
- Applying systems biology principles to analyze large-scale genetic screening data.
Main Results:
- CRISPR screens are emerging as powerful tools for identifying novel targets in cancer immunotherapy.
- These screens enable simultaneous evaluation and prioritization of multiple gene targets.
Conclusions:
- There is a critical need for new targets and combination therapies to broaden the impact of cancer immunotherapy.
- Next-generation CRISPR screens, informed by systems biology, hold promise for advancing immunotherapy strategies.
More Related Videos
07:37Performing an In Vitro Genome-Wide CRISPR Knockout Screen in Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells
Published on: January 31, 2025
07:01Evaluation of Abnormal Growth-related Genes of Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells by Combining CRISPR/Cas9 Technology with Cell Counting
Published on: May 2, 2025
