Liquid biopsy is a new technology for detection and analysis of biomarkers in blood or other body fluids without the need of invasive procedures. One important analyte is cell-free circulating DNA (cfDNA). The main challenges in working with cfDNA are the low concentration (1 - 50 ng/ml) and the high degree of fragmentation of cfDNA (< 500 bp). An additional complication is that the circulating tumor DNA only accounts for up to 20 % of the total cfDNA. Therefore processing higher sample volumes, typically in the range of several milliliters, is required.
The InviGenius® PLUS
STRATEC Molecular has developed the InviMag® Free Circulating DNA Kit/ IG which enables efficient, standardized and fully automated purification of cfDNA fragments from 4 ml of plasma samples on the InviGenius® PLUS instrument. The InviGenius® PLUS simplifies laboratory workflows by using a walk-away robotic system for a magnetic bead based isolation of nucleic acids from up to 12 samples in parallel. Using this automated method the isolated cfDNA is concentrated in an elution volume of 80 µl for further detection and analysis. In addition STRATEC Molecular offers a qPCR assay - the InviQuant GeneCount 40 - to reliably quantitate the extracted cfDNA, e.g. prior to use in NGS or other downstream applications.
For methylation analysis STRATEC Molecular developed the InviMag® Bisulfite Conversion Kit/ IG in order to perform highly robust bisulfite conversion on DNA and cfDNA, also fully automated on the InviGenius® PLUS.
Benefits
- Validated and ready-to-use workflow from sample to extracted cfDNA
- Fully automated cfDNA extraction from plasma samples
- System works for single sample volumes of 4 ml
- Proprietary validated qPCR assay available for quantification of extracted cfDNA
- Fully automated workflow from sample via cfDNA extraction to bisulfite converted DNA
- Purity of cfDNA fit for qPCR, ddPCR, NGS, Pyrosequencing, mass array etc.
Progress in early detection and screening methods for pancreatic cancer