2. Academic Validation
  3. Genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screening in hepatocellular carcinoma with lenvatinib resistance

Genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screening in hepatocellular carcinoma with lenvatinib resistance

  • Cell Death Discov. 2021 Nov 18;7(1):359. doi: 10.1038/s41420-021-00747-y.
Yonggang Lu  # 1,  Haoming Shen  # 2,  Wenjie Huang  # 3,  Sha He 1,  Jianlin Chen 3,  Di Zhang 4,  Yongqi Shen 5,  Yifan Sun 6
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Affiliated Liutie Central Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Guangxi, China.
  • 2 Department of Clinical Laboratory, Hunan Cancer Hospital & The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Hunan, China.
  • 3 Department of Clinical Laboratory, Affiliated Liutie Central Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Guangxi, China.
  • 4 Department of Clinical Laboratory, The Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Hunan, China.
  • 5 Department of Oncology, Affiliated Liutie Central Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Guangxi, China. gxnnsyq@163.com.
  • 6 Department of Clinical Laboratory, Affiliated Liutie Central Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Guangxi, China. sunyifan@gxmu.edu.cn.
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 34795217 DOI: 10.1038/s41420-021-00747-y
Abstract

Lenvatinib is the first target drug approved for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the development of drug resistance is common, and the mechanisms of lenvatinib resistance and resistant targets in HCC are poorly understood. By using CRISPR/Cas9 library screening, we screened out two key resistance genes, neurofibromin 1(NF1), and dual specificity Phosphatase 9 (DUSP9), as critical drivers for lenvatinib resistance in HCC. With RNAi knockdown and CRISPR/Cas9 knockout models, we further clarified the mechanisms by which NF1 loss reactivates the PI3K/Akt and MAPK/ERK signaling pathways, while DUSP9 loss activates the MAPK/ERK signaling pathways, thereby inactivating FOXO3, followed by degradation of FOXO3, finally induced lenvatinib resistance. We also screened out trametinib, a small molecule pathway inhibitor for MEK, that can be used to reverse resistance induced by NF1 and DUSP9 loss in HCC cells. Trametinib was still able to halt HCC growth even when NF1 was knocked out in mice. Collectively, the findings indicate that NF1 and DUSP9 takes critical role in lenvatinib resistance and may be novel specific targets and predictive markers for lenvatinib resistance in HCC.

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