Abstract 1796: Repurposing CRISPR to study aberrant AR signaling in models of castration-resistant prostate cancer

Prostate cancer (PC) is currently the most commonly diagnosed noncutaneous cancer affecting men worldwide. Despite the initial response to androgen ablation, patients relapse with tumors becoming refractory to clinically approved anti-androgens, resulting invariably in castration-resistant PC (CRPC). In CRPC, androgen receptor (AR) signaling is inappropriately restored. Resistance to available hormone therapies in PC has been linked to aberrant splicing of nascent AR transcripts and subsequent expression of constitutively active AR splice variants. Although we have information on the expression of receptor variants in advanced disease, the mechanisms that regulate these aberrantly functioning proteins are markedly understudied. Therefore, a better understanding of how splice variants are generated and function in this disease setting is critical for the development of more refined targeted therapies. By modeling clinically relevant AR splice variants, we will identify and exploit mechanisms of receptor regulation for advanced prostate cancer therapy. The CRISPR-Cas9 technology has been exploited to generate a CWR22Rv1 derivative cell line that lacks AR-FL and hence only expresses AR-Vs. This has allowed us to study the function of AR-Vs in an AR-FL-free background and therefore attribute the observed outcomes exclusively to AR splice variants. In addition, a novel CRISPR-based approach, currently developed in our lab, allows selective targeting of a catalytically inactive form of Cas9 (dead Cas9, dCas9) fused to a FLAG tag, to native chromatin regions and subsequent isolation of protein/RNA complexes associated with these sites. We have taken advantage of spatial mRNA splicing and transcription coupling in order to isolate splicing factors responsible for the generation of the AR variant 7 (AR-V7) in the CWR22Rv1 cell line and its AR-FL CRISPR knockout derivative. Three gRNAs were designed against the AR cryptic exon 3 genomic region. Targeting of FLAG-tagged dCas9 to that site was exploited for in situ capture and isolation of endogenous splicing factors specific to AR-V7, upon rapid FLAG immunoprecipitation and characterization by mass spectrometry. Identification of the AR-V7 spliceosome will fill a critical knowledge gap in our understanding of how AR-Vs are generated and provide key targets for future therapeutic intervention in advanced PC patients. Citation Format: Evangelia E. Kounatidou, Craig Robson, Luke Gaughan. Repurposing CRISPR to study aberrant AR signaling in models of castration-resistant prostate cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1796.