Abstract 5709: Whole genome error-corrected sequencing for sensitive circulating tumor DNA cancer monitoring
Authors: Cheng Alexandre P. , Widman Adam J. , Arora Anushri , Rusinek Itai , Hooper William F. , Murray Rebecca , Halmos Daniel , Langanay Theophile , Inghirami Giorgio , Germer Soren , Marton Melissa , Helland Adrienne , Furatero Rob , McClintock Jaime , Winterkorn Lara , Steinsnyder Zoe , Wang Yohyoh , Rajagopalan Srinivas , Alimohamed Asrar I. , Malbari Murtaza S. , Saxena Ashish , Callahan Margaret K. , Frederick Dennie T. , Spain Lavinia , Jaimovich Ariel , Lipson Doron , Turajlic Samra , Zody Michael C. , Altorki Nasser K. , Wolchok Jedd D. , Postow Michael A. , Robine Nicolas , Boland Genevieve , Landau Dan A. 
Published: April 2023

In many areas of oncology, we lack sensitive tumor-burden monitoring to guide critical decision making. While circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) promises to enable disease monitoring, this approach is limited by the sparsity of ctDNA in the plasma. To overcome this challenge, error-corrected deep targeted sequencing has been proposed.

Nonetheless, this framework is limited by the low number of genomic equivalents (GEs, ~103/mL of plasma), imposing a ceiling on effective sequencing depth. We have previously shown that genome-wide mutational integration through plasma whole genome sequencing (WGS) can sever the dependency between available GEs and assay sensitivity (Zviran et al, 2020). In this approach, tumor-informed mutational profiles are applied to plasma WGS, allowing detection of tumor fractions as low as 10−5. However, the higher cost of WGS limits practical depth of coverage (20-30X) and may limit broad adoption. Lower costs may thus allow for enhanced ctDNA cancer monitoring via WGS. We therefore applied emerging lower-cost WGS (1USD/Gb, Almogy et al, 2022) to plasma from 7 patients with metastatic cancer at ~115x coverage depth. Read depth profiling and error rates were comparable between matched Ultima and standard platform datasets. Integration of deep learning architectures for signal to noise enrichment (Widman et al, biorxiv, 2022) with deeper WGS coverage enabled ctDNA detection at the parts per million range.

We reasoned that lower sequencing cost can be harnessed for duplex error-corrected WGS. Proof-of-concept experiments in mouse PDX samples showed ~1,500x decrease in errors. Applied to the plasma of stage IV melanoma patients (n=5), we obtained error rates ~10−7. We used this approach to tackle the challenging context of cancer monitoring in early-stage melanoma without matched tumor sequencing. While in uncorrected WGS, de novo mutation calling yielded limited ability to detect melanoma specific mutations, duplex-corrected WGS allowed us to harness melanoma mutational signatures for disease monitoring without matched tumor profiling. Analytic validation of our assay showed sensitive and specific cancer detection when the concentration of ctDNA was at 10−4 concentrations. Applied to a cohort of stage III melanoma patients with negative ctDNA detection using previously described methods, we detected ctDNA in all cases (n=4), demonstrating enhanced sensitivity using duplex WGS. These data demonstrate the exciting potential of low cost WGS for ultra-sensitive ctDNA cancer monitoring. In the tumor-informed setting, deeper sequencing increased sensitivity for mutational profile detection. Moreover, the application of duplex error-correction at genome scale allowed for sensitive cancer monitoring without matched tumor profiles. We envision that the era of low-cost sequencing will empower ultra-sensitive cancer monitoring via WGS, with transformative impact on cancer care.

Citation Format: Alexandre P. Cheng, Adam J. Widman, Anushri Arora, Itai Rusinek, William F. Hooper, Rebecca Murray, Daniel Halmos, Theophile Langanay, Giorgio Inghirami, Soren Germer, Melissa Marton, Adrienne Helland, Rob Furatero, Jaime McClintock, Lara Winterkorn, Zoe Steinsnyder, Yohyoh Wang, Srinivas Rajagopalan, Asrar I. Alimohamed, Murtaza S. Malbari, Ashish Saxena, Margaret K. Callahan, Dennie T. Frederick, Lavinia Spain, Ariel Jaimovich, Doron Lipson, Samra Turajlic, Michael C. Zody, Nasser K. Altorki, Jedd D. Wolchok, Michael A. Postow, Nicolas Robine, Genevieve Boland, Dan A. Landau. Whole genome error-corrected sequencing for sensitive circulating tumor DNA cancer monitoring. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 5709.