Enhanced Sequencing Results from Liquid Biopsies

Scientists increasingly appreciate the importance of molecular testing for early cancer detection.¹ Cell free DNA (cfDNA) analysis eliminates the need for invasive tissue biopsies for detection, diagnosis, and disease progression monitoring. To identify mutations, copy number variations, and amplifications, scientists must first perform cfDNA extraction from blood liquid biopsy samples followed by library preparation for next generation sequencing. In the case of cancer analyses, the sequencing step ultimately detects circulating tumor-derived DNA fragments (ctDNA) from the tumor of origin within the total collection of cfDNA.

However, the amount of cfDNA in liquid biopsies is often low, in part due to their degradation by bloodstream DNases.² ctDNA are also outnumbered by DNA from normal cells that make up the rest of the cfDNA sample, particularly at early cancer stages.³ This makes preparation of a library that reliably captures and converts all of the fragmented DNA with the liquid biopsy sample difficult and complicates the downstream detection of rare cancer variants.

To improve the reliability of liquid biopsies, scientists seek ways to optimize every step of the cfDNA sequencing workflow, particularly the library preparation step. Twist Bioscience offers a cfDNA library preparation kit that fits into any liquid biopsy sequencing workflow, providing higher conversion rates and, therefore, higher library yields compared to other commercial kits. Additionally, the Twist Bioscience kit enables highly accurate and sensitive sequencing data, which is important for detecting low variant allele frequencies. Overall, using a trusted kit for cfDNA library preparation helps scientists gain confidence in their results, particularly for early cancer detection.

Learn more about preparing high quality libraries from liquid biopsy samples.

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