Rezidüel Tümör Tespiti İçin Bir Sıvı Biyopsi Yöntemi Olarak Alelspesifik Emülsiyon PCR (asePCR)

Abstract

AimThis study aimed to develop an allele-specific emulsion polymerase chain reaction (asePCR)technique for detection of cell-free circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the blood plasma of cancer patients. Materials and MethodsGenomic DNA extracted from normal (wild-type) and thyroid cancer (mutant) cell lines (MCF10A and B-CPAP) were used to obtain specific dilution series (spike-in) of mutant DNA with wild-type DNA. Two sequential PCR steps (regular and asePCR) were performed with specifically designed primers for each step to detect the spiked-in mutant DNA fraction within the wild-type normal DNA. The DNA products amplified by regular PCR were used as templates in the asePCR where specific reverse primers were designed to amplify either the mutant or wild-type allele while a common forward primer was covalently bound to the beads. The asePCR reaction mix was encapsulated in water-in-oil emulsion compartments and incubated in a thermocycler with specific PCR program settings. At the end of asePCR reaction, oil compartments were broken and DNA-coated beads were evaluated by FACS to determine the mutant and wild-type fractions for each sample.ResultsThe asePCR technique successfully detected the mutant DNA in the background of wildtype DNA (0% mutant) as a proof-of-principle. A strong correlation (r2>0.99) was found between the expected mutant fraction and the fraction measured by asePCR. asePCR was sensitive and specific enough to consistently detect various low mutant DNA fractions in the background of wild-type DNA with no false positives in the wild-type sample.Discussion and Conclusion Our asePCR can be used to detect mutant ctDNA in the plasma of cancer patients as a liquid biopsy method for tumor response evaluation and early detection of possible relapses.