The application of RNA sequencing for the diagnosis and genomic classification of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood malignancy, and implementation of risk-adapted therapy has been instrumental in the dramatic improvements in clinical outcomes. A key to risk-adapted therapies includes the identification of genomic features of individual tumors, including chromosome number (for hyper- and hypodiploidy) and gene fusions, notably ETV6-RUNX1, TCF3-PBX1, and BCR-ABL1 in B-cell ALL (B-ALL). RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) of large ALL cohorts has expanded the number of recurrent gene fusions recognized as drivers in ALL, and identification of these new entities will contribute to refining ALL risk stratification. We used RNA-seq on 126 ALL patients from our clinical service to test the utility of including RNA-seq in standard-of-care diagnostic pipelines to detect gene rearrangements and IKZF1 deletions. RNA-seq identified 86% of rearrangements detected by standard-of-care diagnostics. KMT2A (MLL) rearrangements, although usually identified, were the most commonly missed by RNA-seq as a result of low expression. RNA-seq identified rearrangements that were not detected by standard-of-care testing in 9 patients. These were found in patients who were not classifiable using standard molecular assessment. We developed an approach to detect the most common IKZF1 deletion from RNA-seq data and validated this using an RQ-PCR assay. We applied an expression classifier to identify Philadelphia chromosome-like B-ALL patients. T-ALL proved a rich source of novel gene fusions, which have clinical implications or provide insights into disease biology. Our experience shows that RNA-seq can be implemented within an individual clinical service to enhance the current molecular diagnostic risk classification of ALL.

Circulating tumour DNA reflects treatment response and clonal evolution in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

Several novel therapeutics are poised to change the natural history of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) and the increasing use of these therapies has highlighted limitations of traditional disease monitoring methods. Here we demonstrate that circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) is readily detectable in patients with CLL. Importantly, ctDNA does not simply mirror the genomic information contained within circulating malignant lymphocytes but instead parallels changes across different disease compartments following treatment with novel therapies. Serial ctDNA analysis allows clonal dynamics to be monitored over time and identifies the emergence of genomic changes associated with Richter's syndrome (RS). In addition to conventional disease monitoring, ctDNA provides a unique opportunity for non-invasive serial analysis of CLL for molecular disease monitoring.