Platform comparison of HTG EdgeSeq and RNA-Seq for gene expression profiling of tumor tissue specimens.

Abstract

3566 Background: Clinical biomarker studies are often hindered by the availability of tissue specimens of sufficient quality and quantity. While RNA-Seq is often considered the gold standard for measuring mRNA expression levels in cancer tissue, it typically requires multiple formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue sections to extract a sufficient amount of quality RNA for subsequent gene expression profiling analysis. The HTG EdgeSeq technology is a gene expression profiling platform that combines quantitative nuclease protection assay technology with next-generation sequencing detection. Unlike RNA-Seq, the HTG EdgeSeq technology does not require RNA extraction, and can use small amounts of tissue material, typically several mm2, to generate reproducible gene expression profiles. Methods: This study compares the performance of RNA-Seq and HTG's profiling panel, the HTG EdgeSeq Precision Immuno-Oncology Panel (PIP), which is designed to measure expression levels of 1,392 genes focused on tumor/immune interaction. Approximately 1,200 samples from three tumor indications (gastric cancer, colorectal cancer and ovarian cancer) were tested using both technologies. Results: Up to four FFPE slides were used for RNA extraction to support RNA-Seq testing; out of the 1,202 samples processed, 1,099 generated extracted RNA of sufficient quality and quantity (as measured by RNA concentration, RIN score and %DV200) to proceed to sequencing, which resulted in a pass rate of 91.4% for RNA-Seq. The HTG EdgeSeq PIP panel resulted in a pass rate of 97.3% (samples passing QC metrics) when the same 1,200 samples were tested, and required only a single FFPE section owing to the small sample requirement. The t-SNE (a non-linear dimensionality reduction method) analysis of the common 1,358 genes revealed similar clustering of the three cancer indications between the two methods. Correlations across individual genes by sample resulted in the mean Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.73 (95% confidence interval of 0.61 - 0.80). Additionally, gene-wise comparisons across all samples were also evaluated. Conclusions: These data demonstrate that HTG EdgeSeq gene expression panels can be used as a competitive alternative to RNA-Seq, generating equivalent gene expression results, while offering the added benefits of a small sample size requirement, lack of RNA extraction bias, and fully automated data analysis pipeline.