W Biod05
W Biod05
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Introduction
Liquid biopsies are non-invasive mechanisms to allow for the
characterization of disease from a freely accessible biofluid, such as
blood or urine. With respect to solid tumors, liquid biopsies are not
necessarily a replacement for conventional tissue-based profiling, but
rather serve as a complementary tool for the continuous molecular
profiling of cancer and the optimization of cancer treatment. One
significant advantage of liquid biopsies is their ability to be collected
often without inconveniencing or harming the patient; samples can
be collected from the point of diagnosis and throughout the course of
disease to assess overall prognosis, response to therapy, and likelihood
of relapse or progression. In addition, they are less costly to perform than
a tissue biopsy.1 While liquid biopsies are not yet widely considered the
gold standard for molecular profiling over conventional tissue biopsies,
they are making inroads into mainstream diagnostics via a series of
landmark FDA approvals. Therefore, it is essential for liquid biopsy-
based tests to be clinically validated, and their specificity and sensitivity
determined and compared with the gold standard to support the clinical One significant
utility of these tests moving forward.
advantage of liquid
Despite considerable advances in molecular profiling, there remains a
high unmet medical need for early cancer detection. Liquid biopsies biopsies is their ability
are a rich source of biomarkers, such as circulating tumor cells (CTC),
cell free DNA (cfDNA) and extracellular vesicles containing exosomal to be collected often
RNA (exoRNA).2 Cancer patients’ biofluids contain circulating tumor
DNA (ctDNA), which is shed from tumor cells undergoing necrosis, without inconveniencing
apoptosis or other cell cycle regulatory mechanisms. By interrogating
these analytes, many clinically actionable biomarkers3 such as B-Raf or harming the patient.
proto-oncogene serine/threonine kinase (BRAF), epidermal growth
factor receptor (EGFR) and Kirsten rat sarcoma virus (KRAS) can be
detected without the need for surgical tissue resection. These markers
may indicate the emergence of a therapy-sensitive clone; resistance to
existing treatment; or inform overall disease prognosis. The analysis
of cfDNA presents new opportunities to analyze low-expression
biomarkers due to the high signal-to-noise ratio; to detect cancer early;
to distinguish cancer from benign conditions; and to identify fast- and
slow-growing cancers.4
Key Findings
• Blood-based liquid biopsies are making inroads in cancer Blood-based liquid
management and are increasingly used in conjunction with tissue
biopsies. Plasma cfDNA, ctDNA and exoRNA can be used to biopsies are making
molecularly profile cancer patients and guide downstream treatment
decisions. inroads in cancer
• Krug and colleagues (2018) demonstrated that data from both exoRNA management and
and ctDNA can increase the level of sensitivity of mutation detection
in NSCLC patients, particularly in more localized disease (M0/M1a), are increasingly used
where cfDNA alone is less abundant.
• Möhrmann and colleagues (2018) showed that common mutations in conjunction with
— BRAF, KRAS and EGFR — can be detected in plasma exoRNA
and cfDNA with a high degree of sensitivity; plasma exoRNA is an tissue biopsies.
independent, prognostic biomarker of patient survival.
• Castellanos-Rizaldos and colleagues (2018) have developed a method
for single-step preparation for plasma exoRNA/DNA and cfDNA.
Followed by qPCR, it can determine the EGFR T790M mutation status
in the plasma of NSCLC patients. In addition, combining exoRNA/DNA
and cfDNA in a single PCR diagnostic test provides higher sensitivity
and specificity than cfDNA alone, and may result in more patients
being eligible for the optimal treatment.
• Castellanos-Rizaldos and colleagues (2019) have developed a qPCR-
based test, ExoDx EGFR assay, that can detect EGFR mutations (e.g.,
EGFR L858R, T790M and exon 19 indels) in plasma exoRNA/DNA and
cfDNA. The qPCR test provides higher sensitivity and specificity than
cfDNA alone, and can detect patients in early-stage disease.
• Overall, data from four peer-reviewed articles indicate that plasma
exoRNA/DNA combined with plasma cfDNA can be tested in a single
qPCR test or through next generation sequencing panels — and this
98%
90%
84%
82%
95% 97%
92%
5%
0% 2%
Based on clinical outcomes data, patients with high exoRNA MAF had
shorter median survival and time to treatment failure compared to those
with low MAF (Figure 4). Low expression of exoRNA was associated with
partial response and stable disease ≥6 months (P = 0.006).
A. Overall survival (OS) per mutation allelic frequency (MAF) of KRAS, BRAF or EGFR muta-
tions in plasma. Twenty-one patients with a low MAF (≤median; blue dashed line) in plasma
exoRNA had a significantly longer median OS duration than 22 patients with a high MAF
(>median; red line; 11.8 vs. 5.9 months; P=0.006).
B. Time to treatment failure (TTF) per pre-treatment mutation allelic frequency (MAF) of
KRAS, BRAF or EGFR mutations in plasma. Fifteen patients with a low MAF (≤median; blue
dashed line) in plasma exoNA had a significantly longer median TTF than 17 patients with a
high MAF (>median; red line; 7.4 vs. 2.3 months; P=0.009)
These data suggest that clinical testing using NGS analysis of plasma
exoRNA for BRAF, KRAS and EGFR mutations using exoNA correlate well
to treatment response, and low exoNA MAF may be an independent
prognostic factor of patient survival.
References
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Cancer. 2021 Feb 1;148(3):528-545. doi: 10.1002/ijc.33217. Epub 2020 Aug 10. PMID: 32683679.
2. In ‘t Veld SGJG, Wurdinger T. Tumor-educated platelets. Blood. 2019 May 30;133(22):2359-2364. doi:
10.1182/blood-2018-12-852830. Epub 2019 Mar 4. PMID: 30833413.
3. Keller L, Belloum Y, Wikman H, Pantel K. Clinical relevance of blood-based ctDNA analysis: mutation
detection and beyond. Br J Cancer. 2021 Jan;124(2):345-358. doi: 10.1038/s41416-020-01047-5. Epub
2020 Sep 24. PMID: 32968207; PMCID: PMC7852556.
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cancer clinical trials: a review. Br J Cancer 126, 391–400 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-021-
01696-0
5. Wang Y, Liu J, Ma J, Sun T, Zhou Q, Wang W, Wang G, Wu P, Wang H, Jiang L, Yuan W, Sun Z, Ming
L. Exosomal circRNAs: biogenesis, effect and application in human diseases. Mol Cancer. 2019 Jul
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Krug A, Enderle D, Priewasser T, Noerholm M, Eitan E, Coticchia C, Stoll G, Jordan LM, Eng C, Kopetz ES,
Skog J, Meric-Bernstam F, Janku F. Liquid Biopsies Using Plasma Exosomal Nucleic Acids and Plasma
Cell-Free DNA Compared with Clinical Outcomes of Patients with Advanced Cancers. Clin Cancer Res.
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Loibl S, Loi S, Cristofanilli M, Turner NC. Comparison of BEAMing and Droplet Digital PCR for Circulating
Tumor DNA Analysis. Clin Chem. 2019 Nov;65(11):1405-1413. doi: 10.1373/clinchem.2019.305805. Epub
2019 Sep 24. PMID: 31551314.
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specificity, and accuracy of a liquid biopsy approach utilizing molecular amplification pools. Sci Rep.
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