Tumor cell plasticity is as a major cause of therapeutic failure and malignant relapse. Plasticity is caused by the presence of cellular sub-populations that react differently to intrinsic and external factors than the main population. The underlying reasons can be found on the level of genomic DNA and its epigenetic modifications. Generally, cellular plasticity ensures a populations fitness, however, in the context of tumor growth it represents a therapeutic challenge that we yet have to fully understand to solve.
Recent advances in gene editing let me to ask whether we can tackle tumor plasticity with CRISPR/Cas? What are your thoughts? I am very curious and look forward to read your comments.
I think this is what some of the CRISPR screens are trying to answer. By using pooled CRISPR libraries, either in vivo or in vitro, you have a heterogenous population of cells each carrying a vulnerability presumably. You can then introduce a cellular challenge (specific drug, etc), and see which population of cells make it through to determine the vulnerabilities that make tumor cells "resistant" to treatment. Of course, this example only addresses the presence or absence of a particular gene in therapeutic response.
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