A new sensitive and fast assay for the detection of EGFR mutations in liquid biopsies

Liquid Biopsy in the Clinical Management of Cancers

Liquid biopsy, a noninvasive diagnosis that examines circulating tumor components in body fluids, is increasingly used in cancer management. An overview of relevant literature emphasizes the current state of liquid biopsy applications in cancer care. Biomarkers in liquid biopsy, particularly circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumor RNAs (ctRNA), circulating tumor cells (CTCs), extracellular vesicles (EVs), and other components, offer promising opportunities for early cancer diagnosis, treatment selection, monitoring, and disease assessment. The implementation of liquid biopsy in precision medicine has shown significant potential in various cancer types, including lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. Advances in genomic and molecular technologies such as next-generation sequencing (NGS) and digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR) have expanded the utility of liquid biopsy, enabling the detection of somatic variants and actionable genomic alterations in tumors. Liquid biopsy has also demonstrated utility in predicting treatment responses, monitoring minimal residual disease (MRD), and assessing tumor heterogeneity. Nevertheless, standardizing liquid biopsy techniques, interpreting results, and integrating them into the clinical routine remain as challenges. Despite these challenges, liquid biopsy has significant clinical implications in cancer management, offering a dynamic and noninvasive approach to understanding tumor biology and guiding personalized treatment strategies.

RLP system: A single-tube two-step approach with dual amplification cascades for rapid identification of EGFR T790M

BACKGROUND

The detection of cancer gene mutations in biofluids plays a pivotal role in revolutionizing disease diagnosis. The presence of a large background of wild-type sequences poses a challenge to liquid biopsy of tumor mutation genes. Suppressing the detection of wild-type sequences can reduce their interference, however, due to the minimal difference between mutant and wild-type sequences (such as single nucleotide variants differing by only one nucleotide), how to suppress the detection of wild-type sequences to the greatest extent without compromising the sensitivity of mutant sequence detection remains to be explored.

SIGNIFICANCE

The RLP system addresses the incompatibility between RPA and RT-PCR reactions through a physical separation strategy. Besides, due to the remarkable flexibility of locked nucleic acid probes, the RLP system emerges as a potent tool for detecting mutations across diverse genes. It excels in sensitivity and speed, tolerates plasma matrix, and is cost-effective. This bodes well for advancing the field of precision medicine.

RESULTS

The recombinase-assisted locked nucleic acid (LNA) probe-mediated dual amplification biosensing platform (namely RLP), which combines recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) and LNA clamp PCR method in one tube, enabling highly sensitive and selective detection of EGFR T790M mutation under the help of well-designed LNA probes. This technique can quantify DNA targets with a limit of detection (LoD) at the single copy level and identify point mutation with mutant allelic fractions as low as 0.007 % in 45 min. Moreover, RLP has the potential for the direct detection of plasma samples without the need for nucleic acid extraction and the cost of a single test is less than 1USD. Furthermore, the RLP system is a cascading dual amplification reaction conducted in a single tube, which eliminates the risk of cross-contamination associated with opening multiple tubes and ensures the reliability of the results.

Circulating Tumor DNA in Pediatric Cancer

The measurement of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has gained increasing prominence as a minimally invasive tool for the detection of cancer-specific markers in plasma. In adult cancers, ctDNA detection has shown value for disease-monitoring applications including tumor mutation profiling, risk stratification, relapse prediction, and treatment response evaluation. To date, there are ctDNA tests used as companion diagnostics for adult cancers and it is not understood why the same cannot be said about childhood cancer, despite the marked differences between adult and pediatric oncology. In this review, we discuss the current understanding of ctDNA as a disease monitoring biomarker in the context of pediatric malignancies, including the challenges associated with ctDNA detection in liquid biopsies. The data and conclusions from pediatric cancer studies of ctDNA are summarized, highlighting treatment response, disease monitoring and the detection of subclonal disease as applications of ctDNA. While the data from retrospective studies highlight the potential of ctDNA, large clinical trials are required for ctDNA analysis for routine clinical use in pediatric cancers. We outline the requirements for the standardization of ctDNA detection in pediatric cancers, including sample handling and reproducibility of results. With better understanding of the advantages and limitations of ctDNA and improved detection methods, ctDNA analysis may become the standard of care for patient monitoring in childhood cancers.

Integration of liquid biopsy and pharmacogenomics for precision therapy of EGFR mutant and resistant lung cancers

The advent of molecular profiling has revolutionized the treatment of lung cancer by comprehensively delineating the genomic landscape of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene. Drug resistance caused by EGFR mutations and genetic polymorphisms of drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters impedes effective treatment of EGFR mutant and resistant lung cancer. This review appraises current literature, opportunities, and challenges associated with liquid biopsy and pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing as precision therapy tools in the management of EGFR mutant and resistant lung cancers. Liquid biopsy could play a potential role in selection of precise tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapies during different phases of lung cancer treatment. This selection will be based on the driver EGFR mutational status, as well as monitoring the development of potential EGFR mutations arising during or after TKIs treatment, since some of these new mutations may be druggable targets for alternative TKIs. Several studies have identified the utility of liquid biopsy in the identification of EGFR driver and acquired resistance with good sensitivities for various blood-based biomarkers. With a plethora of sequencing technologies and platforms available currently, further evaluations using randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in multicentric, multiethnic and larger patient cohorts could enable optimization of liquid-based assays for the detection of EGFR mutations, and support testing of CYP450 enzymes and drug transporter polymorphisms to guide precise dosing of EGFR TKIs.