scholarly journals Detection of early stage pancreatic cancer using 5-hydroxymethylcytosine signatures in circulating cell free DNA

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gulfem D. Guler ◽  
Yuhong Ning ◽  
Chin-Jen Ku ◽  
Tierney Phillips ◽  
Erin McCarthy ◽  
...  

Abstract Pancreatic cancer is often detected late, when curative therapies are no longer possible. Here, we present non-invasive detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) by 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) changes in circulating cell free DNA from a PDAC cohort (n = 64) in comparison with a non-cancer cohort (n = 243). Differential hydroxymethylation is found in thousands of genes, most significantly in genes related to pancreas development or function (GATA4, GATA6, PROX1, ONECUT1, MEIS2), and cancer pathogenesis (YAP1, TEAD1, PROX1, IGF1). cfDNA hydroxymethylome in PDAC cohort is differentially enriched for genes that are commonly de-regulated in PDAC tumors upon activation of KRAS and inactivation of TP53. Regularized regression models built using 5hmC densities in genes perform with AUC of 0.92 (discovery dataset, n = 79) and 0.92–0.94 (two independent test sets, n = 228). Furthermore, tissue-derived 5hmC features can be used to classify PDAC cfDNA (AUC = 0.88). These findings suggest that 5hmC changes enable classification of PDAC even during early stage disease.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francois Collin ◽  
Yuhong Ning ◽  
Tierney Phillips ◽  
Erin McCarthy ◽  
Aaron Scott ◽  
...  

AbstractPancreatic cancers are typically diagnosed at late stage where disease prognosis is poor as exemplified by a 5-year survival rate of 8.2%. Earlier diagnosis would be beneficial by enabling surgical resection or earlier application of therapeutic regimens. We investigated the detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in a non-invasive manner by interrogating changes in 5-hydroxymethylation cytosine status (5hmC) of circulating cell free DNA in the plasma of a PDAC cohort (n=51) in comparison with a non-cancer cohort (n=41). We found that 5hmC sites are enriched in a disease and stage specific manner in exons, 3’UTRs and transcription termination sites. Our data show that 5hmC density is reduced in promoters and histone H3K4me3-associated sites with progressive disease suggesting increased transcriptional activity. 5hmC density is differentially represented in thousands of genes, and a stringently filtered set of the most significant genes points to biology related to pancreas (GATA4, GATA6, PROX1, ONECUT1) and/or cancer development (YAP1, TEAD1, PROX1, ONECUT1, ONECUT2, IGF1 and IGF2). Regularized regression models were built using 5hmC densities in statistically filtered genes or a comprehensive set of highly variable 5hmC counts in genes and performed with an AUC = 0.94-0.96 on training data. We were able to test the ability to classify PDAC and non-cancer samples with the Elastic net and Lasso models on two external pancreatic cancer 5hmC data sets and found validation performance to be AUC = 0.74-0.97. The findings suggest that 5hmC changes enable classification of PDAC patients with high fidelity and are worthy of further investigation on larger cohorts of patient samples.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francois Collin ◽  
Yuhong Ning ◽  
Gulfem D. Guler ◽  
Tierney Phillips ◽  
Erin McCarthy ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francois Collin ◽  
Yuhong Ning ◽  
Gulfem D. Guler ◽  
Tierney Phillips ◽  
Erin McCarthy ◽  
...  

Cancers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Toledano-Fonseca ◽  
M. Teresa Cano ◽  
Elizabeth Inga ◽  
Rosa Rodríguez-Alonso ◽  
M. Auxiliadora Gómez-España ◽  
...  

Liquid biopsy may assist in the management of cancer patients, which can be particularly applicable in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). In this study, we investigated the utility of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA)-based markers as prognostic tools in metastatic PDAC. Plasma was obtained from 61 metastatic PDAC patients, and cfDNA levels and fragmentation were determined. BEAMing technique was used for quantitative determination of RAS mutation allele fraction (MAF) in cfDNA. We found that the prognosis was more accurately predicted by RAS mutation detection in plasma than in tissue. RAS mutation status in plasma was a strong independent prognostic factor for both overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Moreover, RAS MAF in cfDNA was also an independent risk factor for poor OS, and was strongly associated with primary tumours in the body/tail of the pancreas and liver metastases. Higher cfDNA levels and fragmentation were also associated with poorer OS and shorter PFS, body/tail tumors, and hepatic metastases, whereas cfDNA fragmentation positively correlated with RAS MAF. Remarkably, the combination of CA19-9 with MAF, cfDNA levels and fragmentation improved the prognostic stratification of patients. Furthermore, dynamics of RAS MAF better correlated with patients’ outcome than standard CA19-9 marker. In conclusion, our study supports the use of cfDNA-based liquid biopsy markers as clinical tools for the non-invasive prognosis and monitoring of metastatic PDAC patients.


Genes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariarita Brancaccio ◽  
Francesco Natale ◽  
Geppino Falco ◽  
Tiziana Angrisano

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the most lethal cancer types world-wide. Its high mortality is related to the difficulty in the diagnosis, which often occurs when the disease is already advanced. As of today, no early diagnostic tests are available, while only a limited number of prognostic tests have reached clinical practice. The main reason is the lack of reliable biomarkers that are able to capture the early development or the progression of the disease. Hence, the discovery of biomarkers for early diagnosis or prognosis of PDAC remains, de facto, an unmet need. An increasing number of studies has shown that cell-free DNA (cfDNA) methylation analysis represents a promising non-invasive approach for the discovery of biomarkers with diagnostic or prognostic potential. In particular, cfDNA methylation could be utilized for the identification of disease-specific signatures in pre-neoplastic lesions or chronic pancreatitis (CP), representing a sensitive and non-invasive method of early diagnosis of PDAC. In this review, we will discuss the advantages and pitfalls of cfDNA methylation studies. Further, we will present the current advances in the discovery of pancreatic cancer biomarkers with early diagnostic or prognostic potential, focusing on pancreas-specific (e.g., CUX2 or REG1A) or abnormal (e.g., ADAMTS1 or BNC1) cfDNA methylation signatures in high risk pre-neoplastic conditions and PDAC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian C.-H. Chiu ◽  
Chang Chen ◽  
Qiancheng You ◽  
Rudyard Chiu ◽  
Girish Venkataraman ◽  
...  

AbstractThe 5-methylcytosines (5mC) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and follicular lymphoma (FL). However, the role of 5-hydroxymethylcytosines (5hmC) that are generated from 5mC through active demethylation, in lymphomagenesis is unknown. We profiled genome-wide 5hmC in circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from 73 newly diagnosed patients with DLBCL and FL. We identified 294 differentially modified genes between DLBCL and FL. The differential 5hmC in the DLBCL/FL-differentiating genes co-localized with enhancer marks H3K4me1 and H3K27ac. A four-gene panel (CNN2, HMG20B, ACRBP, IZUMO1) robustly represented the overall 5hmC modification pattern that distinguished FL from DLBCL with an area under curve of 88.5% in the testing set. The median 5hmC modification levels in signature genes showed potential for separating patients for risk of all-cause mortality. This study provides evidence that genome-wide 5hmC profiles in cfDNA differ between DLBCL and FL and could be exploited as a non-invasive approach.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Barbosa ◽  
Ana Peixoto ◽  
Pedro Pinto ◽  
Manuela Pinheiro ◽  
Manuel R. Teixeira

AbstractCirculating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) consists of small fragments of DNA that circulate freely in the bloodstream. In cancer patients, a fraction of cfDNA is derived from tumour cells, therefore containing the same genetic and epigenetic alterations, and is termed circulating cell-free tumour DNA. The potential use of cfDNA, the so-called ‘liquid biopsy’, as a non-invasive cancer biomarker has recently received a lot of attention. The present review will focus on studies concerning the potential clinical applications of cfDNA in ovarian cancer patients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhigang Zuo ◽  
Jiying Tang ◽  
Xiaojun Cai ◽  
Feng Ke ◽  
Zhenzong Shi

Abstract Monitoring of early-stage breast cancer is critical in promptly addressing disease relapse. Circulating cell-free DNA provides a minimally invasive and sensitive means to probing the disease. In a longitudinal analysis of 250 patients with early breast cancer, we compared the circulating cell-free DNA recovered from both plasma and urine specimens. For comparison, 50 healthy controls were also recruited. Specific mutations associated with the disease were profiled to determine the clinical sensitivity and specificity. Correlations of recovered concentrations of cell-free DNA with outcomes were examined to address early prognostication. PIK3CA mutation profiling in both plasma and urinary cell-free DNA showed an agreement of 97.2% compared with the results obtained for tumor tissues. The analysis of healthy controls revealed that cell-free DNA measurements were stable and consistent over time. Over the short 6-month period of monitoring, our analyses showed declines in recovered cell-free DNA; these findings may aid physicians in stratifying patients at higher risk for relapse. Similar results were observed in both plasma and urine specimens (hazard ratios: 2.16 and 2.48, respectively). Cell-free DNA presents a novel and sensitive method for the monitoring of early-stage breast cancer. In the present study, serial measurements of both plasma and urine specimens were useful in probing the disease.


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