Application of droplet digital PCR in minimal residual disease monitoring of rare fusion transcripts and mutations in haematological malignancies.

Leukaemia of various subtypes are driven by distinct chromosomal rearrangement or genetic abnormalities. The leukaemogenic fusion transcripts or genetic mutations serve as molecular markers for minimal residual disease (MRD) monitoring. The current study evaluated the applicability of several droplet digital PCR assays for the detection of these targets at RNA and DNA levels (atypical BCR::ABL1 e19a2, e23a2ins52, e13a2ins74, rare types of CBFB::MYH11 (G and I), PCM1::JAK2, KMT2A::ELL2, PICALM::MLLT10 fusion transcripts and CEBPA frame-shift and insertion/duplication mutations) with high sensitivity. The analytical performances were assessed by the limit of blanks, limit of detection, limit of quantification and linear regression. Our data demonstrated serial MRD monitoring for patients at molecular level could become "digitalized", which was deemed important to guide clinicians in treatment decision for better patient care.

Target fluorescence in-situ hybridization (Target FISH) for plasma cell enrichment in myeloma.

BACKGROUND: Cytogenetic abnormalities are important prognostic markers in plasma cell myeloma (PCM) and detection is routinely performed by interphase fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) with a panel of probes after enrichment of the plasma cells in the bone marrow specimen. Cell sorting by immunomagnetic beads and concurrent labeling of the cytoplasmic immunoglobulin are the usual enrichment methods. We present an alternative method of plasma cell enrichment termed Target FISH, which is an automated system that combines the images of May-Grünwald- Giemsa (MGG) staining and FISH study on the same plasma cell for analysis. RESULTS: Our experience of Target FISH on 40 PCM patients was described. Briefly, plasma cells were MGG stained, image captured, de-stained, FISH probe hybridized and finally relocated for simultaneous analysis of morphology and FISH signal pattern. The FISH probe panel was TP53/CEP17, t(4;14) IGH/FGFR3, t(14;16) IGH/MAF and CKS1B(1q21)/CDKN2C(P18). Gain of 1q21 was the most common abnormality detected in 18 patients (45 %), to be followed by t(4;14) IGH/FGFR3 detected in 11 patients (27.5 %). Of note, 10 patients showed coexistence of both t(4;14) and 1q21 gain. Two patients showed del(17p)/TP53, one in association with t(4;14) and 1q gain while the other was stand alone. None of this patient cohort showed t(14;16) IGH/MAF. Using the critical binomial function, the normal cutoff FISH positive value for del(17p)/TP53 was 3.4 %, t(4;14) IGH/FGFR3 was 6.8 %, t(14;16) IGH/MAF was 5.6 % and +1q21 was 5.7 %. CONCLUSIONS: The equipment cost notwithstanding, when compared with cell sorting, the total reagent cost was around 10 % lower in Target FISH. The total processing time was longer for Target FISH but manual fluorescence microscopy was no longer necessary. The main advantage of Target FISH was the complete certainty that the cytogenetic abnormality was detected in the cells of interest, and hence a more stringent analytical cutoff value might be considered. Optimization of the cell collection and slide preparation process upfront was required to accrue adequate target cells on each slide for analysis. Our experience suggested that Target FISH was applicable as a routine method of plasma cell enrichment in clinical diagnostic laboratories.

Detection of Germline Mutation in Hereditary Breast and/or Ovarian Cancers by Next-Generation Sequencing on a Four-Gene Panel.

Mutation in BRCA1/BRCA2 genes accounts for 20% of familial breast cancers, 5% to 10% of which may be due to other less penetrant genes which are still incompletely studied. Herein, a four-gene panel was used to examine the prevalence of BRCA1, BRCA2, TP53, and PTEN in hereditary breast and ovarian cancers in Southern Chinese population. In this cohort, 948 high-risk breast and/or ovarian patients were recruited for genetic screening by next-generation sequencing (NGS). The performance of our NGS pipeline was evaluated with 80 Sanger-validated known mutations and eight negative cases. With appropriate bioinformatics analysis pipeline, the detection sensitivity of NGS is comparable with Sanger sequencing. The prevalence of BRCA1/BRCA2 germline mutations was 9.4% in our Chinese cohort, of which 48.8% of the mutations arose from hotspot mutations. With the use of a tailor-made algorithm, HomopolymerQZ, more mutations were detected compared with single mutation detection algorithm. The frequencies of PTEN and TP53 were 0.21% and 0.53%, respectively, in the Southern Chinese patients with breast and/or ovarian cancers. High-throughput NGS approach allows the incorporation of control cohort that provides an ethnicity-specific data for polymorphic variants. Our data suggest that hotspot mutations screening such as SNaPshot could be an effective preliminary screening alternative adopted in a standard clinical laboratory without NGS setup.

Evaluation of 2 real-time PCR assays for in vitro diagnostic use in the rapid and multiplex detection of EGFR gene mutations in NSCLC.

Activating mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene in non-small cell lung cancer predict for a favorable clinical response to tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy. Although Sanger sequencing is a conventional method to detect EGFR gene mutations, multiplex real-time allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) systems are increasingly used in the routine molecular diagnostic setting. We aim to evaluate 2 proprietary real-time PCR assays (cobas and therascreen) against Sanger sequencing in the detection of EGFR gene mutations. The overall concordance rate between cobas and therascreen assays with Sanger sequencing was 89% and 88%, respectively, and increased to 96% and 98%, respectively, if the mutations not covered were excluded. The cobas assay showed a superior coverage of exon 20 mutations, but L861Q was not targeted. The nature of specimen, DNA integrity, and tumor cell content are factors that affect the assay performance. DNA extracted from cell block and clot of pleural fluid gave rise to 1 invalid call and 1 false-negative result by the cobas assay and 1 missed T790M mutation and 1 false-negative result by the therascreen assay. Both assays are around 5 times more expensive compared with Sanger sequencing in terms of reagent cost. We conclude that both assays prove to be a rapid, simple, and validated method in detecting the most common and clinically significant EGFR gene mutations in non-small cell lung cancer. Although less convenient compared with real-time PCR assays, Sanger sequencing is cheaper in terms of reagent cost and allows the detection of rare or novel EGFR gene mutations.