Quantitative characterization of tumor cell-free DNA shortening.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Previous studies found that cell-free DNA (cfDNA) generated from tumors was shorter than that from healthy cells, and selecting short cfDNA could enrich for tumor cfDNA and improve its usage in early cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring; however, the underlying mechanism of shortened tumor cfDNA was still unknown, which potentially limits its further clinical application.

Results

Using targeted sequencing of cfDNA in a large cohort of solid tumor patient, sequencing reads harboring tumor-specific somatic mutations were isolated to examine the exact size distribution of tumor cfDNA. For the majority of studied cases, 166 bp remained as the peak size of tumor cfDNA, with tumor cfDNA showing an increased proportion of short fragments (100-150 bp). Less than 1% o

SUBMITTER: Guo J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7350596 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature