Building a Robust Tumor Profiling Program: Synergy between Next-Generation Sequencing and Targeted Single-Gene Testing

PLoS One. 2016 Apr 4;11(4):e0152851. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152851. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a powerful platform for identifying cancer mutations. Routine clinical adoption of NGS requires optimized quality control metrics to ensure accurate results. To assess the robustness of our clinical NGS pipeline, we analyzed the results of 304 solid tumor and hematologic malignancy specimens tested simultaneously by NGS and one or more targeted single-gene tests (EGFR, KRAS, BRAF, NPM1, FLT3, and JAK2). For samples that passed our validated tumor percentage and DNA quality and quantity thresholds, there was perfect concordance between NGS and targeted single-gene tests with the exception of two FLT3 internal tandem duplications that fell below the stringent pre-established reporting threshold but were readily detected by manual inspection. In addition, NGS identified clinically significant mutations not covered by single-gene tests. These findings confirm NGS as a reliable platform for routine clinical use when appropriate quality control metrics, such as tumor percentage and DNA quality cutoffs, are in place. Based on our findings, we suggest a simple workflow that should facilitate adoption of clinical oncologic NGS services at other institutions.

MeSH terms

  • Biomarkers, Tumor / genetics
  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Genetic Testing* / methods
  • Genomics* / methods
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • Mutation*
  • Neoplasms / diagnosis*
  • Neoplasms / genetics*
  • Nucleophosmin

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • NPM1 protein, human
  • Nucleophosmin

Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.