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Cancer Research

Unlock the potential of dPCR for cancer research

Small details, big revelations – when precision matters, you can count on dPCR

Understanding the sheer diversity of genetic abnormalities underpinning cancer can be overwhelming and requires specialized tools and technologies. It’s about revealing those all-important, low-frequency mutations that are notoriously hard to detect. It’s about measuring the smallest of changes in copy numbers. It’s all of these intricate genomic details that provide clues about disease progression, treatment response and monitoring.

Due to its unmatched accuracy, high sensitivity and absolute quantification, dPCR is increasingly being embraced by cancer researchers. When it comes to rare targets, dPCR can provide the resolution you need to have confidence in your data. You can use dPCR to detect:

Low-frequency mutations
Targets in complex mixtures
Copy number variations
Allelic variants
Small changes in frequencies of targets across a wide range of samples and applications

dPCR technology provides the resolution you need if you are:
✓ Monitoring changes in the tumor genome
✓ Determining the role of cancer-specific fusion genes
✓ Characterizing cancer cell lines or organoids
✓ Detecting biomarkers from liquid biopsies
✓ Investigating the tumor microbiome
✓ Evaluating cancer-related epigenetic variations
✓ Studying drug resistance

Get to know our QIAcuity dPCR platform

Detecting rare events in complex mixtures or mutant sequences lost in a dense background of wild-type sequences can be difficult. Finding the same rare positive time after time can be even more challenging. Explore how dPCR can overcome these obstacles to help you reveal the proverbial needle in a haystack – a rare mutation.

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Unleash the potential of dPCR for ultra-rare pan-cancer mutation detection

Key mutations in oncogenes like serine/threonine-protein kinase B-Raf (BRAF) and the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) are heavily researched due to their significant role in carcinogenesis. However, sample screening times can be long and low-frequency variants are often missed. Benefit from fast, precise and cost-efficient screening of various sample types using dPCR PanCancer Kits, which provide simultaneous detection of multiple hallmark cancer mutations in BRAF and EGFR genes down to 0.1% mutation frequency in just 2 hours.

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Detect specific mutations related to oncogenesis and cancer progression

Our dPCR LNA Mutation Assays can detect a mutation present at 0.1% in a background of wild-type genomic DNA. Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA)-enhanced oligonucleotides with substantially high levels of affinity for their complementary sequences make these assays excellent tools for detecting and discriminating highly similar DNA targets.

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Locus-specific analysis of CNVs and alterations by singleplex or multiplex dPCR

Copy number variations (CNVs) are key cancer biomarkers and are extensively investigated in the field of oncogenetics. CNVs include amplifications and deletions of a particular segment of chromosomal DNA. dPCR enables highly sensitive quantification of fold change in CNV, providing a unique advantage over traditional methods like FISH, MLPA, comparative genomic hybridization microarrays and SNP arrays.

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Create custom dPCR assays to analyze CNVs in human, mouse or rat targets.

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