In a study of plasma samples from more than 200 people, researchers report that cell-free DNA fragments derived from hepatocellular carcinoma were more likely to end at certain genomic coordinates than non-tumor-associated fragments; the researchers identified millions of tumor-associated end coordinates throughout the genome, which could be detected in plasma more readily than tumor-associated somatic mutations, suggesting that tumor-associated end coordinate detection could improve the cost-effectiveness of liquid cancer biopsies.
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Article #18-14616: "Preferred end coordinates and somatic variants as signatures of circulating tumor DNA associated with hepatocellular carcinoma," by Peiyong Jiang et al .
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences