Cancers frequently develop resistance to anticancer therapies, but opportunities to obtain tissue samples for molecular analyses of resistance mutations are typically limited. Mohan et al. used high-throughput sequencing to analyse the tumour-derived DNA in the blood of ten patients with colorectal cancer who were undergoing treatment with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-targeted antibodies. They found that acquired focal amplifications (rather than point mutations) in genes that are known to be involved in the response to EGFR-targeted agents were predictive of therapeutic resistance. Such monitoring may aid optimization of treatment regimens.
References
Mohan, S. et al. Changes in colorectal carcinoma genomes under anti-EGFR therapy identified by whole-genome plasma DNA sequencing. PLoS Genet. 10, e1004271 (2014)
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Burgess, D. Non-invasive monitoring of resistance mutations. Nat Rev Genet 15, 291 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3732
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3732