NGS Assays Using cfDNA Input is Enabling Cancer Researchers to Accelerate their Work

The availability of a next-generation sequencing (NGS) assays using cfDNA input is enabling cancer researchers to accelerate their work to help move the community closer to personalized medicine.

Ion Torrent™ Oncomine™ Cell-Free Nucleic Acid (cfNA) Research Assays target key SNVs and indels to help researchers analyze and better understand the actions and effects of tumor drivers and resistance mutations, and are uniquely capable of detecting rare variants in cfDNA with very high specificity based on the tag sequencing technology.

The Oncomine™ Lung cfDNA Assay is a tumor type-specific, multi-biomarker next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay that, from a single tube of blood, enables detection of somatic mutations in plasma, down to a level of 0.1% in genes relevant to solid tumors.

The low allele frequency of 0.1% was confirmed using NGS across three different Oncomine cfDNA Assays (lung, breast, and colon cancer samples), with orthogonal verification using dPCR.

The white paper “Analytical verification methods for the Oncomine Lung cfDNA Assay using the Ion S5 XL System” demonstrates the assay performance with multiple sample types across a broad input range, high assay reliability (reproducibility and repeatability), accuracy (sensitivity and specificity), and a simple workflow. This may provide useful information for researchers who plan to analyze liquid biopsy samples in their labs.

Learn more about the detection of somatic mutations in plasma cell-free nucleic acid with the Ion Torrent™ Oncomine™ Cell-Free Nucleic Acid (cfNA) Research Assays and how targeted NGS is accelerating oncology translational research at our Precision Oncology Seminar Tour.