CRISPR-Cas9 technology has revolutionized large-scale functional genomic screening in mammalian cell-culture systems. Due in part to optimized lentiviral delivery vectors; it is now possible to perform CRISPR-Cas9 screens in animals in order to study biological processes in the context of a whole organism and within more physiologically relevant environment. This chapter focuses primarily on mouse models of human cancers; viral vectors used for simultaneous tumor initiation and genome editing and sgRNA library design considerations. Experience with direct and indirect in vivo RNAi screens in the literature is also discussed in order to highlight the challenges of delivering diverse libraries of small RNAs in vivo.
Keywords: CRISPR; Cas9; animal models; cancer; in vivo; screen.
Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.