Molecular diagnostics III Flashcards
What are the three use cases of immunodiagnostics throughout the disease course of lymphoproliferations?
- Diagnosis -> tumor clone vs. immune response
- Prognosis -> heterogeneity - different outcomes
- Monitoring -> evaluation of therapy effect
Which specific code involved in lymphoproliferative disease can be used to diagnose, prognose and monitor therapy effect?
Unique DNA-code of the receptors of lymphocytes
How does it come to be that every lymphocyte receptor has an unique receptor? (3)
- VDJ-recombination
- n-nucleotide addition/deletion
- p-nucleotide addition/deletion
Where does the diversity in receptors occur?
Mainly in junction region = CDR3
In case of lymphoproliferation seen in lymph nodes or blood, lymph nodes can be investigated to determine whether this increase in lymphocytes is due to … (2)
- Physiological immune response
- Malignant process
Which kind of testing is used to determine the cause of lymphoproliferation?
Clonality testing
What are the results of clonality testing of lymphoid tumors/immune responses?
Lymphoid tumors: all cells have identical Ig/Tr-genes (monoclonal)
Immune responses: multiple different markers
How does a PCR-based analysis of Ig/TR rearrangement work? (2)
- Filtering out non-lymphoid cells
- PCR fragment analysis
How do you filter out non-lymphoid cells in a PCR-based analysis of Ig/TR rearrangement?
Ig/Tr genes are far apart -> no primers span this distance -> no PCR products
Lymphoproliferations: What does the PCR fragment analysis investigate? How?
Length diversity in coupling area -> using fluorescent primers
Lymphoproliferations: How do fluorescent primers determine length diversity in coupling area?
Different fluorescent intensities can be used to determine fragment length
Lymphoproliferations: monoclonal/polyclonal situations lead to a normally distributed curve of coupling area lengths (no signal fragment is dominant)
Polyclonal
Lymphoproliferations: monoclonal/polyclonal situations lead to a single peak because one fragment is dominant over the others?
Monoclonal
Lymphoproliferations: What makes fragment analysis complicated? (2)
- VDJ recombinations -> grouped into 7 families -> multiplex settings needed
- Somatic hypermutation
Lymphoproliferations: What is multiplexing?
Multiple primers at both sides
Lymphoproliferations: Why is it not necessary to use a primer for every different VDJ-combination?
7 families -> contain regions in which the DNA sequence is very similar
Lymphoproliferations: What ensures that all fragments will be covered by the assay?
Addition of probes for all IGVH-families
Lymphoproliferations: Why do B cells add extra complexity to PCR analyses?
Somatic hypermutation -> cause primer misannealing
Lymphoproliferations: How do you compensate for primer misannealing?
Extra primers at different locations -> reduce complete non-binding
Lymphoproliferations: How can we make immunodiagnostics on B cells more reliable? This leads to?
Investigate both heavy- and light chain –> higher sensitivity
Lymphoproliferations: PCR-based fragment analysis has a lower/higher resolution than NGS-based techniques
Lower
Lymphoproliferations: Why do NGS-based techniques allow for higher resolution than PCR-based fragment analysis?
Allows for analysis of all sequences
Lymphoproliferations: Which two NGS assays can be used to investigate lymphoproliferations?
- Amplicon PCR amplification
- DNA-based capture assay
Lymphoproliferations: Describe the amplicon PCR amplification workflow (2)
- Multiplex expansion of IGH-and IGK regions
- Sequencing expanded products
Amplicon PCR amplification: how can a result suggest clonality?
One peak clearly stands out from the curve
Amplicon PCR amplification: If there are a lot of different sequences represented in a curve (even though there is a clear peak that stands out), what does this suggest?
No clonal proliferation
Lymphoproliferations: Describe the DNA-based capture assay workflow
Probes pulldown ROI from total genomic information
DNA-based capture assay: Probes can target what? (4)
- Rearrangements
- Translocations
- Copy no. alterations
- Mutations (indells)
DNA-based capture assay: What is meant with probes being used to target rearrangements?
Simultaneous reporting of clonality at all Ig/TR loci
DNA-based capture assay: Probes can/can’t be specific for all different V-, D-, and J-genes
Can
DNA-based capture assay: What is the advantage of using probes to target translocations?
Detecting previously unknown translocation partners
DNA-based capture assay: What does using a probe to target copy number alterations allow for?
Clonality detection in difficult B-cells cases exhibiting somatic hypermutation