A rapid method for identifying and isolating cancer genomic and cell free DNA.
It is well recognised that changes in the DNA methylation landscape are a hallmark of cancer. This epigenetic reprogramming creates a methylation landscape, distinct from that of normal DNA, characterized by clustered methylation at regulatory promoter regions separated by large tracks of hypomethylated regions. While this process is well characterized, most DNA methylation cancer diagnostics focus on differences in DNA methylation at a few specific loci, and thus are only able to identify a few cancer sub-types.
Researchers at the University of Queensland have developed a method that steps away from the current “specific loci” approach and looks at the DNA molecule more globally, detecting the overall changes in the levels and patterns in DNA methylation, which are the consequence of cancer.
Key features
- Fast method for differentiating cancer DNA from normal DNA based on physicochemical properties imparted by global DNA methylation profile
- No Bisulphite conversion or PCR amplification required
- Works on genomic DNA from tumour and cfDNA from plasma
- Potential to be used as fast (10 mins) enrichment process for downstream PCR or sequencing assays to reduce signal to noise ratio
- Validated on over 70 tumour samples taken from breast, prostate and lymph node; and over 280 plasma samples from patients with breast and colorectal cancer.
Further information:
Press Release (The University of Queensland, 5 Dec 2018)
Media coverage:
- Australian researchers discover universal cancer biomarker using water and gold (FierceBiotech.com)
- Australian researchers develop 10-minute cancer test (CNN.com)
- New Universal Cancer Test Takes Only Ten Minutes. The Secret Ingredient? Gold (Forbes.com)
- Researchers Say They’ve Created Universal Cancer Test That Detects Mutating Cells in Just 10 Minutes (Smithsonian.com)
- One test to diagnose them all: researchers exploit cancers’ unique DNA signature (theconversation.com)
- A 10-minute, universal blood test for cancer (The Oxford Scientist)
- Australian scientists develop 10-minute cancer test (The Xinhuanet China)