The proto-oncogene KRAS is mutated in a wide array of human cancers, most of which are aggressive and respond poorly to standard therapies. Although the identification of specific oncogenes has led to the development of clinically effective, molecularly targeted therapies in some cases, KRAS has remained refractory to this approach. A complementary strategy for targeting KRAS is to identify gene products that, when inhibited, result in cell death only in the presence of an oncogenic allele1,2. Here we have used systematic RNA interference (RNAi) to detect synthetic lethal partners of oncogenic KRAS and found that the non-canonical IκB kinase, TBK1, was selectively essential in cells that harbor mutant KRAS. Suppression of TBK1 induced apoptosis specifically in human cancer cell lines that depend on oncogenic KRAS expression. In these cells, TBK1 activated NF-κB anti-apoptotic signals involving cREL and BCL-XL that were essential for survival, providing mechanistic insights into this synthetic lethal interaction. These observations identify TBK1 and NF-κB signaling as essential in KRAS mutant tumors and establish a general approach for the rational identification of co-dependent pathways in cancer.

Gene knockout is the most powerful tool for determining gene function or permanently modifying the phenotypic characteristics of a cell. Existing methods for gene disruption are limited by their efficiency, time to completion, and/or the potential for confounding off-target effects. Here, we demonstrate a rapid single-step approach to targeted gene knockout in mammalian cells, using engineered zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs). ZFNs can be designed to target a chosen locus with high specificity. Upon transient expression of these nucleases the target gene is first cleaved by the ZFNs and then repaired by a natural-but imperfect-DNA repair process, nonhomologous end joining. This often results in the generation of mutant (null) alleles. As proof of concept for this approach we designed ZFNs to target the dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) gene in a Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line. We observed biallelic gene disruption at frequencies >1%, thus obviating the need for selection markers. Three new genetically distinct DHFR ؊/؊ cell lines were generated. Each new line exhibited growth and functional properties consistent with the specific knockout of the DHFR gene. Importantly, target gene disruption is complete within 2-3 days of transient ZFN delivery, thus enabling the isolation of the resultant DHFR ؊/؊ cell lines within 1 month. These data demonstrate further the utility of ZFNs for rapid mammalian cell line engineering and establish a new method for gene knockout with application to reverse genetics, functional genomics, drug discovery, and therapeutic recombinant protein production.genetic engineering ͉ zinc-finger proteins T he use of gene knockouts in basic research, functional genomics, and industrial cell line engineering is severely limited by an absence of methods for rapid targeting and disruption of an investigator-specified gene. Early approaches to somatic cell gene disruption used genome-wide nontargeted methods, including ionizing radiation and chemical-induced mutagenesis (1, 2) whereas more recent methods used targeted homologous recombination (HR) (3). However, the Ͼ1,000-fold lower frequency of the targeted HR event relative to random integration in most mammalian cell lines (beyond mouse ES cells) can necessitate screening thousands of clones and take several months to identify a biallelic targeted gene knockout. Strategies including positive and negative marker selection and promoter-trap can boost efficiencies considerably, although these approaches present their own technical challenges and are not always successful in achieving high efficiency targeting (4, 5). Although advances with adeno-associated viral delivery strategies continue to improve the efficiency of knockouts (6, 7), the frequency is still very low and the time required to achieve biallelic gene knockout remains a barrier to its routine adoption. Here, we present a general solution for rapid gene knockout in mammalian cells.The repair of double strand DNA breaks (DSB) in mammalian cells occurs via the distinct mechanisms of homol...

Although the roles of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) signaling in KRAS-driven tumorigenesis are well established, KRAS activates additional pathways required for tumor maintenance, inhibition of which are likely to be necessary for effective KRAS-directed therapy. Here we show that the IKK-related kinases TBK1 and IKKε promote KRAS-driven tumorigenesis by regulating autocrine CCL5 and IL-6 and identify CYT387 as a potent JAK/TBK1/IKKε inhibitor. CYT387 treatment ablates RAS-associated cytokine signaling and impairs Kras-driven murine lung cancer growth. Combined CYT387 and MEK inhibitor therapy induces regression of aggressive murine lung adenocarcinomas driven by Kras mutation and p53 loss. These observations reveal that TBK1/IKKε promote tumor survival by activating CCL5 and IL-6 and identify concurrent inhibition of TBK1/IKKε, JAK, and MEK signaling as an effective approach to inhibit the actions of oncogenic KRAS.