The DepMap (Dependency Map) project is a large, publicly available resource that brings together data from the CCLE (Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia), PRISM, and Achilles projects to profile over 1,000 human cancer cell lines. It includes detailed information about each cell line’s DNA, RNA, proteins, and metabolites, along with results from large-scale CRISPR and RNAi screens that test which genes are essential for cell survival. All data types are standardized so that they can be compared across different cell lines and studies.
In this class, we use a curated subset of DepMap to help identify useful cell line models and build a baseline understanding of how molecular features differ across cancer types. This dataset is especially helpful for comparing gene activity, mutations, and dependencies across tissues, and for exploring how multiple types of data can be combined to study cancer biology.