TSO 500 ctDNA Version 2 delivers faster turnaround time, greater analytical sensitivity, more streamlined workflow, further enabling precision medicine
Leading cancer centers are increasingly using liquid-biopsy-based CGP, and the TSO 500 ctDNA v2 assay can enable deeper insights for cancer research. (Credit: PR Newswire/ Illumina, Inc.)
Illumina, a global leader in DNA sequencing and array-based technologies, today announced a new generation of its distributed liquid biopsy assay for genomic profiling. The new TruSight™ Oncology 500 ctDNA v2 (TSO 500 ctDNA v2) is a research assay that enables noninvasive comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) from blood when tissue testing is not available, or to complement tissue-based testing.
Key improvements include a faster sample-to-answer turnaround time of less than four days, higher sensitivity with lower cell-free DNA (cfDNA) input requirements, and a more streamlined workflow, which will be further enabled with automation in the first half of 2024.
“Leading cancer centers are increasingly adopting the use of liquid-biopsy-based CGP, and with the TSO 500 ctDNA v2 assay we’ve aimed to make it easier for customers to integrate and enable deeper insights for cancer research,” said Kevin Keegan, general manager of Oncology at Illumina.
Nine institutions are participating in Illumina’s global early-access customer program to trial TSO 500 ctDNA v2. Giancarlo Pruneri, professor of Pathology at the University of Milan School of Medicine and chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the National Cancer Institute of Milan, noted that preliminary testing of the new version of the TSO500 ctDNA panel in their labs “undoubtedly represented an improvement over the previous version.”
“In particular, the optimization of library preparation protocol saves one working day, thus enabling a faster delivery of the molecular analysis,” he said, “while the increased assay sensitivity allows the analysis of samples with reduced DNA content (20 ng), potentially broadening the utility of liquid biopsy testing.”
Growing evidence on the utility and efficacy of liquid biopsy CGP is leading to its inclusion in recommended professional guidelines in oncology. Most notably, liquid biopsy testing in non-small-cell lung cancer has proven useful when tissue results are either unavailable or delayed. This trend is expected to continue for other solid tumor malignancies, which supports the consideration of broad tumor profiling from cfDNA from blood even before tissue analysis.
“Traditional tissue-based analyses are frequently still limited by tissue availability, often involving costly and invasive biopsy procedures,” Pruneri said. “In this context, Illumina’s new panel emerges as a solution to address the dependency on tissue availability.”
Expected in the first half of 2024, automation-enabled kits and method for TSO 500 ctDNA v2 will allow laboratories to scale with the growing demand for this technology.
Source: Company Press Release