Synthetic lethality and cancer

NJ O'Neil, ML Bailey, P Hieter - Nature Reviews Genetics, 2017 - nature.com
NJ O'Neil, ML Bailey, P Hieter
Nature Reviews Genetics, 2017nature.com
A synthetic lethal interaction occurs between two genes when the perturbation of either gene
alone is viable but the perturbation of both genes simultaneously results in the loss of
viability. Key to exploiting synthetic lethality in cancer treatment are the identification and the
mechanistic characterization of robust synthetic lethal genetic interactions. Advances in next-
generation sequencing technologies are enabling the identification of hundreds of tumour-
specific mutations and alterations in gene expression that could be targeted by a synthetic …
Abstract
A synthetic lethal interaction occurs between two genes when the perturbation of either gene alone is viable but the perturbation of both genes simultaneously results in the loss of viability. Key to exploiting synthetic lethality in cancer treatment are the identification and the mechanistic characterization of robust synthetic lethal genetic interactions. Advances in next-generation sequencing technologies are enabling the identification of hundreds of tumour-specific mutations and alterations in gene expression that could be targeted by a synthetic lethality approach. The translation of synthetic lethality to therapy will be assisted by the synthesis of genetic interaction data from model organisms, tumour genomes and human cell lines.
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