Identification of regulators of poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor response through complementary CRISPR knockout and activation screens

Abstract

Inhibitors of poly-ADP-ribose polymerase 1 (PARPi) are highly effective in killing cells deficient in the homologous recombination (HR) DNA repair pathway, such as those lacking BRCA2. In light of this, PARPi have been utilized in recent years to treat BRCA2-mutant tumors, with many patients deriving impressive clinical benefit. However, positive response to PARPi is not universal, even among patients with HR-deficient tumors. Here, we present the results of three genome-wide CRISPR knockout and activation screens which provide an unbiased look at genetic determinants of PARPi response in wildtype or BRCA2-knockout cells. Strikingly, we reveal that depletion of the histone acetyltransferase TIP60, a top hit from our screens, robustly reverses the PARPi sensitivity caused by BRCA2 deficiency. Mechanistically, we show that TIP60 depletion rewires double strand break repair in BRCA2-deficient cells by promoting 53BP1 binding to double strand breaks to suppress end resection. Our work provides a comprehensive set of putative biomarkers that serve to better understand and predict PARPi response, and identifies a novel pathway of PARPi resistance in BRCA2-deficient cells.