Somatic copy number alteration and fragmentation analysis in circulating tumor DNA for cancer screening and treatment monitoring in colorectal cancer patients

Background: Analysis of circulating free DNA (cfDNA) is a promising tool for personalized management of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Untargeted cfDNA analysis using whole-genome sequencing (WGS) does not need a priori knowledge of the patient´s mutation profile. Methods: Here we established LIquid biopsy Fragmentation, Epigenetic signature and Copy Number Alteration analysis (LIFE-CNA) using WGS with ~6x coverage for detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in CRC patients as a marker for CRC detection and monitoring. Results: We describe the analytical validity and a clinical proof-of-concept of LIFE-CNA using a total of 259 plasma samples collected from 50 patients with stage I-IV CRC and 61 healthy controls. To reliably distinguish CRC patients from healthy controls, we determined cutoffs for the detection of ctDNA based on global and regional cfDNA fragmentation patterns, transcriptionally active chromatin sites, and SCNAs. We further combined global and regional fragmentation pattern into a machine learning classifier to accurately predict ctDNA for cancer detection. By following individual patients throughout their course of disease, we show that LIFE-CNA enables the reliable prediction of response or resistance to treatment up to 3.5 months before commonly used CEA. Conclusion: In summary, we developed and validated a sensitive and cost-effective method for untargeted ctDNA detection at diagnosis as well as for treatment monitoring of all CRC patients based on genetic as well as non-genetic tumor-specific cfDNA features. Thus, once sensitivity and specificity have been externally validated, LIFE-CNA has the potential to be implemented into clinical practice. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to consider multiple genetic and non-genetic cfDNA features in combination with ML classifiers and to evaluate their potential in both cancer detection and treatment monitoring.

Type: Other
Archiver: European Genome-Phenome Archive (EGA)

1 Dataset 1 Publication

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Dataset ID	Description	Technology	Samples
EGAD00001009309	This dataset contains: 1.) Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data (~6x) of 259 cfDNA samples obtained from 50 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients and 61 healthy controls. Paired-end sequencing was performed with 2x101 bp reads on the NovaSeq 6000 system. Data is provided as mapped .bam files (aligned to GRCh38/hg38). 2.) WGS data (~1x) of 50 tumor biopsy and 45 saliva samples from CRC patients. Paired-end sequencing was performed with 2x101 bp reads on the NovaSeq 6000 system. Data is provided as mapped .bam files (aligned to GRCh38/hg38).	Illumina NovaSeq 6000	354

Publications	Citations
Somatic copy number alteration and fragmentation analysis in circulating tumor DNA for cancer screening and treatment monitoring in colorectal cancer patients. Hallermayr A, Wohlfrom T, Steinke-Lange V, Benet-Pagès A, Scharf F, Heitzer E, Mansmann U, Haberl C, de Wit M, Vogelsang H, Rentsch M, Holinski-Feder E, Pickl JMA. J Hematol Oncol 15: 2022 125	4