SEATTLE – May 16, 2012 – A investigate led by researchers during Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that a next-generation, high-speed DNA-decoding record called high-throughput sequencing can detect a beginning signs of intensity relapse in scarcely twice a series of leukemia patients as compared to upsurge cytometry, a stream bullion customary for detecting minimal residual disease. The formula of a study, led by Hutchinson Center computational biologist Harlan Robins, Ph.D., are reported in a May 16 emanate of Science Translational Medicine.
“The ability to envision illness relapse progressing with high-throughput sequencing would give hematologists a choice to yield cancer regularity earlier, charity a larger possibility of survival. Longer term, this record potentially also could be used to primarily diagnose leukemia and lymphoma many progressing than we can today,” pronounced Robins, an associate member of a Hutchinson Center’s Public Health Sciences Division and analogous author of a paper.
For a study, Robins and colleagues compared a efficacy of high-throughput sequencing contra upsurge cytometry to detect minimal residual illness in 43 patients diagnosed with strident T lymphoblastic leukemia, a form of blood cancer that is many common in children underneath age 7. By sequencing a patients’ T-cell receptor genes before and 29 days after chemotherapy, a researchers were means to precisely magnitude their participation in a blood and yield a some-more accurate prophecy of leukemia relapse.
“The high-throughput sequencing rescued minimal residual illness in scarcely double a series of patients than upsurge cytometry – 22 contra 12 patients, respectively,” Robins said.
Minimal residual disease, or MRD, a vital predictor of cancer relapse, is when a tiny series of cancer cells tarry diagnosis and insist in patients. Until recently, MRD was undetectable.
Flow cytometry, a primary routine for detecting MRD in a United States, depends a series of cells in a blood with cancer-specific protein markers on their surface. While it is deliberate a bullion standard, upsurge cytometry comes with a series of limitations:
· it has been formidable to order opposite opposite labs since there is no customary protocol;
· the antibodies used to tab a carcenogenic cells are expensive;
· every cancer form requires a opposite test, since any turpitude is compared with a opposite protein marker; and
· the attraction of a exam is low, that means it infrequently fails to commend a participation of cancer cells.
This investigate – a initial use of high-throughput sequencing, or HTS, to detect minimal-residual illness in a clinical hearing environment – found it to be during slightest 20 times some-more supportive than upsurge cytometry in detecting MRD.
“Our investigate indicates that HTS offers many advantages over upsurge cytometry,” Robins said. “Since HTS can detect any pre-identified counterpart and is achieved in a centralized lab, it consistently generates reproducible and arguable formula regardless of cancer type, regulating a same routine for illness showing and tracking. Furthermore, HTS is rarely automated, cost-effective and objective, since upsurge cytometry is some-more time consuming, relies on a ability of a user and is therefore theme to tellurian error.”
The Hutchinson Center has patents tentative on core technologies employed by Robins and colleagues in and with high-throughput DNA-sequencing used for this study. These core technologies have been protected exclusively to Adaptive Biotechnologies, a Seattle biotechnology association Robins co-founded that offers blurb DNA sequencing and analysis.
Robins and colleagues detected how to adjust normal high-throughput record to method usually non-static regions of a tellurian genetic code: a T- and B-cell receptors – a vicious member of a tellurian adaptive defence system. These receptors are brief strands of DNA that constantly file to concede a defence complement to quarrel viruses, infection or disease.
“This find was vicious to a bargain of how patients mountain immunological responses opposite cancer, autoimmune disorders and spreading diseases,” pronounced Robins, whose Hutchinson Center investigate focuses on a genetics of a defence complement – quite how it responds to pathogens and a aging process.
Co-authors on a paper enclosed researchers from a University of Washington, Adaptive Biotechnologies, a University of New Mexico, a University of Virginia and a University of California during San Francisco. Funding for a work was supposing by a University of Washington Department of Laboratory Medicine; Becton, Dickinson and Co. of New Jersey; and Children’s Oncology Group.
Note for media only: To obtain a duplicate of a embargoed Science Translational Medicine paper, “High-Throughput Sequencing Detects Minimial Residual Disease in Acute T Lymphoblastic Leukemia,” greatfully a biography during scipak@aaas.org or 202-326-6440. To arrange an talk with Robins, greatfully hit Kristen Woodward in Hutchinson Center media relations, kwoodwar@fhcrc.org or 206-667-5095.
MEDIA CONTACT
Kristen Woodward
206-667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
# # #
At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, a interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and yield cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers, including 3 Nobel laureates, move a relentless office and passion for health, believe and wish to their work and to a world. For some-more information, greatfully revisit www.fhcrc.org.