Tagomics Ltd., a pioneering biomarker discovery and diagnostics company, today announced the publication of a peer-reviewed study in Cell Reports Methods, underpinning its epigenomic profiling technology, Active-Seq, the basis of Tagomics’ ActivaceTM platform. The paper, titled ‘Genome-wide profiling of unmodified DNA using methyltransferase-directed tagging and enrichment’, built on research from the University of Birmingham, describes Tagomics’ enzymatic approach to epigenomic profiling that targets unmethylated DNA for enrichment, and its application to biomarker identification and disease profiling in colorectal cancer patients.
Current gold standard approaches for assessing genome-wide DNA methylation levels are poorly suited to the challenge of working in liquid biopsy (blood) samples, limiting the performance of cell-free DNA based diagnostic tests. Addressing these limitations, the paper describes Active-Seq (Azide Click Tagging for In Vitro Epigenomic sequencing), a base conversion-free methodology that does not alter the underlying DNA sequence and provides a scalable and comprehensive solution for the discovery of novel biomarkers in liquid biopsy samples. Activace, built on the Active-Seq technology, is a streamlined workflow that incorporates sequencing library preparation with enrichment of unmethylated DNA. The workflow is compatible with low DNA input quantities, down to one nanogram, and has been optimised for the analysis of DNA methylation in cfDNA derived from liquid biopsy samples.
The published paper demonstrates application of Active-Seq for the detection of abnormal DNA methylation signals in a cohort of colorectal cancer patients, identifying thousands of hypomethylated and hypermethylated regions in tumour-derived tissue, both of which are associated with cancer. The study lays the groundwork for application of the approach to the deconvolution of the tissue of origin of cell-free DNA in blood, improving detection and characterisation of disease.
