RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Integrated cross-study datasets of genetic dependencies in cancer JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2020.05.22.110247 DO 10.1101/2020.05.22.110247 A1 Clare Pacini A1 Joshua M. Dempster A1 Isabella Boyle A1 Emanuel Gonçalves A1 Hanna Najgebauer A1 Emre Karakoc A1 Dieudonne van der Meer A1 Andrew Barthorpe A1 Howard Lightfoot A1 Patricia Jaaks A1 James M. McFarland A1 Mathew J. Garnett A1 Aviad Tsherniak A1 Francesco Iorio YR 2021 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/06/2020.05.22.110247.abstract AB CRISPR-Cas9 viability screens are increasingly performed at a genome-wide scale across large panels of cell lines to identify new therapeutic targets for precision cancer therapy. Integrating the datasets resulting from these studies is necessary to adequately represent the heterogeneity of human cancers and to assemble a comprehensive map of cancer genetic vulnerabilities. Here, we integrated the two largest public independent CRISPR-Cas9 screens performed to date (at the Broad and Sanger institutes) by assessing, comparing, and selecting methods for correcting biases due to heterogeneous single guide RNA efficiency, gene-independent responses to CRISPR-Cas9 targeting originated from copy number alterations, and experimental batch effects. Our integrated datasets recapitulate findings from the individual datasets, provide greater statistical power to cancer- and subtype-specific analyses, unveil additional biomarkers of gene dependency, and improve the detection of common essential genes. We provide the largest integrated resources of CRISPR-Cas9 screens to date and the basis for harmonizing existing and future functional genetics datasets.Competing Interest StatementMJG, and FI receive funding from Open Targets, a public-private initiative involving academia and industry. MJG receives funding from AstraZeneca and performs consultancy for Sanofi. FI performs consultancy for the joint CRUK - AstraZeneca Functional Genomics Centre. AT is a consultant `for Tango Therapeutics and Cedilla Therapeutics. JMD, JM and AT receive funding from the Cancer Dependency Map Consortium, but no consortium member was involved in or influenced this study. All the other authors declare no competing interests.