Revolutionizing DNA repair research and cancer therapy with CRISPR–Cas screens

Abstract

All organisms possess molecular mechanisms that govern DNA repair and associated DNA-damage response (DDR) processes. Owing to their relevance to human disease, most notably cancer, these mechanisms have been studied extensively, yet new DNA repair and/or DDR factors and functional interactions between them are still being uncovered. The emergence of CRISPR technologies and CRISPR-based genetic screens has enabled genome-scale analyses of gene–gene and gene–drug interactions, thereby providing new insights into cellular processes in distinct DDR-deficiency genetic backgrounds and conditions. In this Review, we discuss the mechanistic basis of CRISPR–Cas genetic screening approaches and describe how they have contributed to our understanding of DNA repair and DDR pathways. We discuss how DNA repair pathways are regulated, and identify and characterise cross-talks between them. We also highlight the impacts of CRISPR-based studies in identifying novel strategies for cancer therapy, and in understanding, overcoming and even exploiting cancer-drug resistance, for example in the contexts of PARP inhibition, homologous recombination deficiencies and/or replication stress. Lastly, we present the DDR CRISPR screen (DDRcs) portal, in which we have collected and reanalysed data from CRISPR screen studies and provide a tool for systematically exploring them.