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Method for predicting the sensitivity of cancer patients to specific drugs

Technology description

The identification of biomarkers that can predict the response to drug treatment is an urgent need in the field of precision medicine and oncology. The lack of expression of RAD51C is able to confer a marked sensitivity to PARPi, ATRi, SN-38 (active metabolite of irinotecan) and oxaliplatin. The proposed solution consists of a molecular assay designed for the identification of methylated RAD51C as a biomarker of response to the aforementioned drugs in patients affected by colorectal cancer. Furthermore, it is not excluded that the use of the same assay may be of benefit and interest to other types of tumors, in particular those characterized by defects in the homologous recombination system such as breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancer. The asset is based on the droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) which has the advantage of being fast, sensitive and executable even on a large scale compared to other procedures based mainly on sequencing. Furthermore, the ddPCR allow starting not only with good quality genomic DNA (gDNA), but also with cell-free DNA (cfDNA) which is naturally very fragmented and poorly concentrated.

Applications

Colorectal Cancer Treatment
Treatment with PARPi
Treatment with ATRi
Treatment with irinotecan
Treatment with oxaliplatin

Key advantages

High-throughput ddPCR
Fast, sensitive and executable on a large scale compared to sequencing procedures
It can be used for genomic DNA but also for cell-free DNA

Inventors