Rapid modeling of cooperating genetic events in cancer through somatic genome editing

Abstract

Cancer is a multistep process that involves mutations and other alterations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes1. Genome sequencing studies have identified a large collection of genetic alterations that occur in human cancers2–4. However, the determination of which mutations are causally related to tumorigenesis remains a major challenge. Here we describe a novel CRISPR/Cas9-based approach for rapid functional investigation of candidate genes in well-established autochthonous mouse models of cancer. Using a KrasG12D-driven lung cancer model5, we performed functional characterization of a panel of tumor suppressor genes with known loss-of-function alterations in human lung cancer. Cre-dependent somatic activation of oncogenic KrasG12D combined with CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing of tumor suppressor genes resulted in lung adenocarcinomas with distinct histopathological and molecular features. This rapid somatic genome engineering approach enables functional characterization of putative cancer genes in the lung and other tissues using autochthonous mouse models. We anticipate that this approach can be used to systematically dissect the complex catalog of mutations identified in cancer genome sequencing studies.