CRISPR/Cas9 somatic multiplex-mutagenesis for high-throughput functional cancer genomics in mice

Assigning biological relevance and molecular function to large catalogues of mutated genes in cancer is a major challenge. Likewise, pinpointing drivers among thousands of transcriptionally or epigenetically dysregulated genes within a cancer is complex and limited by the lack of tools for high-throughput functional cancer genomic analyses. We show here for the first time, to our knowledge, application of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering system for simultaneous (multiplexed) mutagenesis of large gene sets in adult mice, allowing high-throughput discovery and validation of cancer genes. We characterized applications of CRISPR/Cas9 multiplexing, resulting tumor phenotypes, and limitations of the methodology. By using defined genetic or environmental predisposing conditions, we also developed, to our knowledge, the first mouse models of CRISPR/Cas9-induced hepatocellular carcinoma and show how multiplexed CRISPR/Cas9 can facilitate functional genomic analyses of hepatobiliary cancers.