Somatic Mutations in Cancer-Free Individuals: A Liquid Biopsy Connection

Volume 1 - Issue 1

Andrew Ford, Charmaine Brown and Chen Hsiung Yeh*

Received: December 19, 2017;   Published: January 18, 2018

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Abstract

Somatic mutations have been perceived as the causal event in the origin of the vast majority of cancers. Advanced massively parallel, highthroughput DNA sequencing have enabled the comprehensive characterization of somatic mutations in a large number of tumor samples for precision and personalized therapy. Understanding how these observed genetic alterations give rise to specific cancer phenotypes represents an ultimate goal of cancer genomics. However, somatic mutations are also commonly found in healthy individuals, which interfere with the effectiveness for cancer diagnostics.

Keywords: Somatic mutation; Germline; Cell-free DNA; Liquid biopsy; Next-generation sequencing

Abbreviations: NGS: Next-Generation Sequencing ; cfDNA: Cell-free DNA; MAF: Mutant Allele Frequency

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