MAGeCK enables robust identification of essential genes from genome-scale CRISPR/Cas9 knockout screens

We propose the Model-based Analysis of Genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 Knockout (MAGeCK) method for prioritizing single-guide RNAs, genes and pathways in genome-scale CRISPR/Cas9 knockout screens. MAGeCK demonstrates better performance compared with existing methods, identifies both positively- and negatively-selected genes simultaneously, and reports robust results across different experimental conditions. Using public datasets, MAGeCK identified novel essential genes and pathways, including EGFR in vemurafenib treated A375 cells harboring a BRAF mutation. MAGeCK also detected cell-type specific essential genes including BCR and ABL1 in the KBM7 cells bearing a BCR-ABL fusion, and IGF1R in the HL-60 cells, which depends on the insulin signaling pathway for proliferation.