A systematic genome-wide mapping of the oncogenic risks associated with CRISPR-Cas9 editing

Recent studies have reported that CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing may bear cancer risk due to a selection against cells with a functional p53. Here, analyzing genome-wide CRISPR and RNAi screens we systematically chart the p53-related oncogenic risk of individual CRISPR knockouts and find supporting evidence in patient derived tumors. Importantly, we find that CRISPR knockouts may select for mutated variants of the cancer drivers VHL and KRAS, comparable to that of p53.