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Comment
. 2016 Aug;6(8):824-6.
doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-16-0665.

Genomic Amplifications Cause False Positives in CRISPR Screens

Ankur Sheel  1 , Wen Xue  2
Affiliations
Comment

Genomic Amplifications Cause False Positives in CRISPR Screens

Ankur Sheel et al. Cancer Discov. 2016 Aug.

Abstract

In CRISPR-based screens for essential genes, Munoz and colleagues and Aguirre and colleagues show that gene-independent targeting of genomic amplifications in human cancer cell lines reduces proliferation or survival. The correlation between CRISPR target site copy number and lethality demonstrates the need for scrutiny and complementary approaches to rule out off-target effects and false positives in CRISPR screens. Cancer Discov; 6(8); 824-6. ©2016 AACR.See related article by Munoz et al., p. 900See related article by Aguirre et al., p. 914.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Genomic copy number causes false positive hits in CRISPR screens
(A) Technical features of the two CRISPR-based screens for essential genes in human cancer cell lines. “Cell per sgRNA” denotes the number of cells per sgRNA, or the representation of library maintained at each cell passage. (B) Both papers find that sgRNAs are depleted if they target highly amplified genomic regions, independent of gene expression status.
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