Project description:Analysis of 60 FFPE (formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded) ovarian cancer tissue samples to evaluate preservation quality and viability of global and phosphoproteomic analysis
Project description:RAS genotyping is mandatory for the prescription of anti-EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) therapies in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. The standard genotyping is assessed on formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tumour tissue. This study compares RAS and BRAF genotyping results achieved in analyzing circulating plasma DNA using OncoBEAM technique with those achieved using the standard genotyping techniques and formalin-fixed paraffin embedded samples.
Project description:Tissue sample acquisition is a limiting step in many studies. There are many thousands of formalin fixed paraffin embedded archival blocks collected around the world, but in contrast relatively few fresh frozen samples in tumor banks. Once samples are fixed in formalin the RNA is degraded and traditional methods for gene expression profiling are not suitable. In this study we have evaluated the whole genome DASL assay from Illumina to perform transcriptomic analysis from archived breast tumor tissue fixed in formalin paraffin embedded blocks. We profiled 76 familial breast tumors from cases carrying a BRCA1, BRCA2 or ATM mutation, or from non-BRCA1/2 families. We found that replicate samples correlated well with each other (r2=0.9-0.98). In 12/15 cases, the matched formalin-fixed and frozen samples predicted the same tumor molecular subtypes with confidence. These results demonstrate that the whole genome DASL assay is a valuable tool to profile degraded RNA from archival FFPE material. This assay will enable transcriptomic analysis of a large number of archival samples that are stored in pathology archives around the globe and consequently will have the potential to improve our understanding and characterisation of many diseases.
