Cosmin's paper on using Gene Regulatory Networks to predict gene essentiality in cancer

Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are widely used to understand how driver mutations in tumours alter transcriptional networks and to identify new therapeutic targets. Here, we use genome-wide CRISPR screen data to systematically evaluate the ability of GRNs to predict sensitivity to genetic perturbation in cancer.

Spoiler alert – we find that, for the purposes of predicting gene inhibition sensitivity, simple mRNA abundance generally outperforms gene regulatory activity inferred from GRNs!

You can read the full paper here.

You can read Cosmin’s tweetorial about the paper below:

Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are used to identify vulnerabilities in cancer, but it's unclear how good they are at this. Here, we used CRISPR screens to systematically evaluate the ability of GRNs to identify genetic dependencies in cancer. https://t.co/T3DaGm6t6t Thread: 1/16

— Cosmin Tudose (@cosmint_) March 6, 2023