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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Oncology in Veterinary Medicine
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1394686

Proof-of-concept evaluation of next-generation sequencing-based liquid biopsy for non-invasive cancer detection in cats

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This proof-of-concept evaluation demonstrates that next-generation sequencing-based liquid biopsy can detect genomic alterations in the blood of cats with cancer and the absence of such alterations in the blood of presumably cancer-free cats. Two cats with cytologically confirmed lymphoma and nine presumably cancer-free cats were included in this analysis. Whole blood was collected from each subject and samples were subjected to DNA extraction, library preparation, and next-generation sequencing. Both cancer-diagnosed subjects had somatic copy number variants (a "cancer signal") identified in cell-free DNA, suggesting the current presence of cancer in these subjects. All nine presumably cancer-free subjects had unremarkable genomic profiles, suggesting the absence of cancer in these subjects. Liquid biopsy using next-generation sequencing of cell-free DNA allows for blood-based detection of cancer-associated genomic alterations in cats. Such technology has the potential to offer considerable utility in veterinary medicine, particularly for the non-invasive prioritization of small cell intestinal lymphoma versus inflammatory bowel disease in cats with gastrointestinal signs. This study lays the foundation for future studies to fully validate this type of testing for use in clinical practice.

    Keywords: cell-free DNA, Genomic alterations, cancer screening, Feline lymphoma, multicancer early detection

    Received: 01 Mar 2024; Accepted: 12 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ruiz-Perez, Nakashe, Marshall, Marass, Tang, McLennan, Kroll, Flesner, Gray, Rafalko, Grosu, Hicks, Tynan, Tsui, Flory and Kruglyak. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Andi Flory, PetDx, La Jolla, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.