Great progress has been made in the treatment of melanoma through use of targeted therapies and immunotherapy. One approach that has not been fully explored is synthetic lethality, which exploits somatically acquired changes, usually driver mutations, to specifically kill tumour cells. We outline the various approaches that may be applied to identify synthetic lethal interactions and define how these interactions may drive drug discovery efforts.
Keywords: CRISPR; melanoma genomics; preclinical models; synthetic lethality; therapeutic target.
© 2017 The Authors. Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.