Detection of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutations in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Tumor Specimens from Various Ways by Denaturing High performance Liquid Chromatography
Siyuan CHEN1,2, Zhihong CHEN1, Ailin GUO1, Jian SU1, Ying HUANG1, Shiliang CHEN1, Xuchao ZHANG1, Xuening YANG1, Jinji YANG1, Yilong WU1
1Guangdong Lung Cancer Institute, Guangdong General Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou 510080, China; 2Graduate School, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Corresponding author: Yilong WU, E-mail: syylwu@live.cn
【Abstract】Background and objective Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is the most important therapeutic target in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). EGFR mutations may predict responsiveness to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). These mutations are commonly identified using direct sequencing, which is considered the gold standard. But direct sequencing is time-consuming and hyposensitive. In addition, this method requires a lot of tumor specimens. Denaturing highperformance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) is a rapid automated sensitive and specific method in mutant gene detection. The aim of this study is to evaluate DHPLC as a rapid detection method for EGFR mutations in NSCLC tumor specimens. Methods DHPLC was used to evaluate the accuracy and sensitivity of detection the serial dilutions of mutant and wild type EGFR plasma DNA. Frozen tumor specimens of 83 NSCLC patients from various ways had been included, after DNA extraction and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on EGFR exon 19 and 21, the results from the direct sequencing and DHPLC were compared. Results Mutant plasma DNA can be detected in the serial dilution of 1:100 by DHPLC and 1:10 by direct sequencing respectively. The results from DHPLC showed 22 EGFR mutations were detected in 83 NSCLC patients, and only 19 mutation samples had been conformed by direct sequencing. Moreover, the other 61 samples were deemed as wild type by DHPLC and direct sequencing. The sensitivity and specificity of DHPLC was 100% and 95.13% respectively. The detection of the tumor specimens from CT-guided transthoracic needle lung biopsy, lymph node biopsy and surgical resection all showed high sensitivity and specificity. EGFR mutation has strong correlation with gender and pathologic type, but irrelevant to age and smoking status. Conclusion DHPLC was a precise rapid preliminary screening method for detection of NSCLC EGFR genotype.
【Key words】Lung neoplasms; Epidermal growth factor receptor; Mutation; Denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography