Abstract
Comprehensive analyses of cancer genomes promise to inform prognoses and precise cancer treatments. A major barrier, however, is inaccessibility of metastatic tissue. A potential solution is to characterize circulating tumor cells (CTCs), but this requires overcoming the challenges of isolating rare cells and sequencing low-input material. Here we report an integrated process to isolate, qualify and sequence whole exomes of CTCs with high fidelity using a census-based sequencing strategy. Power calculations suggest that mapping of >99.995% of the standard exome is possible in CTCs. We validated our process in two patients with prostate cancer, including one for whom we sequenced CTCs, a lymph node metastasis and nine cores of the primary tumor. Fifty-one of 73 CTC mutations (70%) were present in matched tissue. Moreover, we identified 10 early trunk and 56 metastatic trunk mutations in the non-CTC tumor samples and found 90% and 73% of these mutations, respectively, in CTC exomes. This study establishes a foundation for CTC genomics in the clinic.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 479-484 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Nature Biotechnology |
Volume | 32 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 2014 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biotechnology
- Bioengineering
- Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
- Molecular Medicine
- Biomedical Engineering