Fig. 3: DepMap scores showing gene essentiality.

Since deconvolution by CRISPR/Cas9 requires that the target protein encoding gene is not essential for survival of the test cells, we investigated if cell membrane genes are more, or less, essential than genes in general. To this end, we used dependency scores from CRISPR/Cas9 proliferation screens for 436 cell lines from DepMap. In essence, a negative DepMap score indicates that a gene is essential for the survival/proliferation of a large fraction of cell lines. Gray lines indicate all genes, blue lines investigated gene set. a Distributions of DepMap scores for membrane protein genes and cluster designation (CD) antigen genes. As shown, these gene sets are significantly depleted of negative DepMap scores relative to other genes in the genome, indicating that they are less essential. This observation indicates that failure to deconvolute a target because of essentiality is unlikely. b By contrast, gene sets that are essential for cell survival are enriched for negative DepMap scores, exemplified here by ribosomal protein genes. In all panels, P-values for enrichment/depletion were calculated using RenderCat using default settings (two-sided Zhang C goodness-of-fit test).