Frequently Asked Questions About Our Products And Services

• General FAQs for Next Generation Sequencing >>

For INVIEW Liquid Biopsy Oncoprofiling, we accept fresh blood (must be provided in BCT with a stabilising buffer intended for the isolation of cfDNA) or plasma samples or retained plasma samples as well as already isolated cell-free DNA. Please refer to our sample preparation sheet. The extraction of cfDNA is performed from the blood plasma fraction.
For starting material like DNA isolated from FFPE and fresh-frozen tissue samples, please refer to our product aimed at solid tumour profiling, INVIEW Oncoprofiling.

The genes of interests are enriched via proprietary Eurofins protocols using the latest Agilent SureSelect hybridisation technology. The target enrichment system captures genomic targets using long 120 nt RNA baits. The hybridisation-based strategy facilitates the deduction of PCR duplications in the assay. The Eurofins proprietary protocol enables the generation of highly complex libraries, deep coverage of regions of interest and improved sequence uniformity. Following target enrichment, next-generation sequencing of the library is performed.

The product interrogates the exons of about 600 genomic regions that are implicated in cancer development. Thereby, an extremely high number of possible mutations are covered and analysed. The detected genomic aberrations include SNPs, InDels, and CNVs.

SNP and InDel detection has a technical sensitivity down to 1%.

The quality and quantity of each sample will be determined at sample receipt or after DNA extraction. Further quality controls are performed at various steps of the process.

All three tests can be used with liquid biopsy samples (cfDNA). The three products serve as powerful non-invasive tools for cancer profiling.

INVIEW Liquid Biopsy Oncoexome is the first commercially available service for whole exome sequencing (WES) of cfDNA. With this service, a comprehensive profile of all mutations present in the protein coding regions of the exome is obtained. This product is suitable for a comprehensive look at the exome of a cancer patient, in cases where limited information regarding clinically relevant mutations is available.

INVIEW Liquid Biopsy Oncoprofiling is a comprehensive NGS cancer panel for profiling important tumour-specific mutations implicated in nearly all cancer types. The service uses Agilent SureSelect with an optimized protocol to target about 600 known cancer genes including tumour suppressors, mutation hotspots and drug resistance markers. The panel is optimised for sequence coverage and uniformity with sensitivity down to 1%.

The product is available for research use only (RUO). All samples are processed compliant to ISO 17025:2005 accreditation.

Even when control samples (plasma samples from at least seven other patients/individuals) are submitted, the CNV analysis approach could be subjected to limitations. The sensitivity and specificity of the assay will depend on the level of CNVs present and the tumour fraction.

Tumour heterogeneity could make it difficult to correctly identify all relevant copy number variations in a given plasma sample. In addition, excessive contamination with DNA from normal cells could lead to coverage differences that are too small to be detected even with Eurofins Genomics highly sensitive methods.

We recommend that the blood sample be shipped to Eurofins Genomics within 24 hours after blood drawing. The sample must be stored in BCT Streck tubes. Storage and delivery of blood samples must be at room temperature. Plasma samples have to be shipped on dry ice.