OGT launches high-quality NGS panel for research into Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT), A Sysmex Group Company, is excited to announce the launch of its SureSeq CLL + CNV Panel — the company’s latest high-quality, next-generation sequencing (NGS) offering for research into Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). The SureSeq CLL + CNV Panel fulfils the desire for reliable copy number variation (CNV) detection by NGS, including trisomy 12 and loss of heterozygosity (LOH), as well as somatic variants, even at low allele frequency. The panel, which has been tested to show excellent concordance with array data, can detect both small and large CNVs at 10% minor allele frequency (MAF), SNVs and indels down to 1% MAF and LOH at 5-10Mb.

The comprehensive panel covers all the most up-to-date, evidence-based genes and genomic aberrations for CLL and will enable laboratories to simplify their laboratory workflow by replacing multiple assays with a single one.

CLL is the most common type of leukemia in adults and is associated with chromosomal aberrations ranging from somatic variants, to small and large CNVs, including trisomies. This complex genetic heterogeneity combined with a lack of sensitive and reliable NGS solutions has meant that currently scientists need to employ multiple methods to build a genomic profile of CLL samples.

One area in particular where NGS has traditionally struggled, is in the detection of CNVs, which can occur in important tumor suppressor genes, such as TP53. Additional techniques such as microarray, karyotyping or fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) are often required to detect these CNVs and structural abnormalities, such as loss of heterozygosity (LOH) and trisomy 12.

The SureSeq CLL + CNV Panel was designed in collaboration with recognized cancer experts, as Emma Shipstone, Executive VP Marketing at OGT, highlights:

Having input from experienced cancer labs was instrumental in getting the design of the SureSeq CLL + CNV Panel spot on. This is CNV detection done well, yielding excellent data quality. This one assay can now replace the multiple assays historically necessary for the genomic profiling of CLL samples.”

For researchers, the single NGS panel simplifies the workflow and consolidates the profiling of the wide variety of genomic changes into a single analysis. Reliable data analyses can be carried out with OGT’s popular and easy-to-use Interpret software, a complementary and powerful software solution for accurate identification and visualization of all variants including CNVs.