Multi-omics characterization of synthetic lethality-related molecular features: implications for SL-based therapeutic target screening.

Synthetic lethality (SL) represents the co-occurrence of two or more non-lethal disordered genes that could lead to cell death. SL-based anticancer therapeutics could specifically kill the cancer cells carrying the targeted mutated gene while leaving normal cells alive. Recent large-scale computational and experimental screenings provide rich resources of SL information while lacking systematic research on molecular features of SL genes. Combined with comprehensive multi-omics data analysis and experimental validation of one SL gene pair, Guo et al. portrayed a systematic layout of cancer-specific SL interactions that could improve understanding of carcinogenesis and potentially assist the subsequent screening of anticancer therapeutic targets.