# What is CERES score？

**URL:** <https://forum.depmap.org/t/what-is-ceres-score/2819>\
**Category:** Q&A\
**Created:** [September 18, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://forum.depmap.org/t/what-is-ceres-score/2819 "2023-09-18T15:01:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jimmy](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forum.depmap.org/jimmy/32/949_2.png) [@Jimmy](https://forum.depmap.org/u/Jimmy)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://forum.depmap.org/t/what-is-ceres-score/2819/1 "2023-09-18T15:01:25Z")

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Hey guys, I recently read a research paper that mentioned something called a “ **CERES score**.” It seems to be related to cell lines, but I’m having trouble understanding its exact definition.

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**Author:** ![dllahr](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forum.depmap.org/dllahr/32/23_2.png) [@dllahr](https://forum.depmap.org/u/dllahr)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 12:38am UTC](https://forum.depmap.org/t/what-is-ceres-score/2819/2 "2023-09-19T00:38:42Z")

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Hi, I can’t give you the exact definition, but at a high level the CERES scores is calculated for each cell line-gene combination, and it tells you for cell line X how much it depends on gene Y. It’s sometimes also called a dependency score for that reason. A rough rule of thumb on interpreting the CERES scores: a 0 means there is no dependency; a -1 is the score observed for known pan essential genes.

A newer version of the dependency score is CHRONOS which I believe uses CERES as input.

Hope this helps.

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**Author:** ![pmontgom](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forum.depmap.org/pmontgom/32/4_2.png) [@pmontgom](https://forum.depmap.org/u/pmontgom)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2023, 9:02pm UTC](https://forum.depmap.org/t/what-is-ceres-score/2819/3 "2023-09-22T21:02:42Z")

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I’ll also offer that we now refer to this as “Gene Effect” on the portal. [CERES](https://depmap.org/ceres/) was the original method that computed Gene Effects with this scale as @dllahr described, but we now we use [Chronos](https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-021-02540-7), our newer method, to compute a score with the same scale.

Thanks,  
Phil