Analysis of DNA, RNA, and protein extracted from tissue specimens in epidemiologic studies is useful for assessing etiologic heterogeneity, mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and biomarkers for prognosis and prediction of treatment responses. Fresh-frozen tissue samples may provide optimal quality nucleic acids, but pose multiple logistical considerations, including rapid access to tissues before hi...

Breast cancer is the most prevalent malignancy in women throughout the world. Similar to other cancers, a strong relationship between breast cancer and environmental factors such as infectious agents has been reported. Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite which may play a role in cancer induction. The present study aimed to investigate a possible association between a history of T. gondii ...

INTRODUCTION Gene expression signatures have been identified for epithelial ovarian cancer survival (TCGA) and intrinsic subtypes (Tothill et al.). One obstacle to clinical translation is that these signatures were developed using frozen tissue, whereas usually only formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue is available. The aim of this study was to determine if gene expression signatures...

BACKGROUND AND AIM Next generation sequencing (NGS) has quickly the tool of choice for genome and exome data generation. The multitude of sequencing platforms as well as the variabilities within each platform need to be assessed. In this paper we used two platforms (ION TORRENT AND ILLUMINA) to assess single nucleotides variants in colorectal cancer (CRC) specimens. METHODS CRC specimens (n =...

PURPOSE Epidermal growth factor receptor variant III (EGFRvIII) is an oncogenic, constitutively active mutant form of the EGFR that is commonly expressed in glioblastoma and is also detected in a number of epithelial cancers. EGFRvIII presents a unique antigenic target for anti-EGFRvIII vaccines and it has been shown to modulate response to EGFR kinase inhibitor therapy. Thus, detection in clin...

BACKGROUND The preservation of microRNAs in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue makes them particularly useful for biomarker studies. The utility of small RNA sequencing for microRNA expression profiling of FFPE samples has yet to be determined. METHODS Total RNA was extracted from de-paraffinized and proteinase K-treated FFPE specimens (15-20 years old) of 8 human lung adenoca...

BACKGROUND Fine needle aspiration (FNA) is widely utilized for evaluation of patients with thyroid nodules. However, approximately 30% are indeterminate for malignancy. Recently, a mutation in the BRAF gene has been reported to be the most common genetic event in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). In this retrospective study, we assessed the utility of BRAF V600E mutation detection for refining...

Formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues represent a valuable source for biomarker studies and clinical routine diagnostics. However, they suffer from degradation of nucleic acids due to the fixation process. Since genetic and epigenetic studies usually require PCR amplification, this degradation hampers its use significantly, impairing PCR robustness or necessitating short amplicons...

PURPOSE The requirement of frozen tissues for microarray experiments limits the clinical usage of genome-wide expression profiling by using microarray technology. The goal of this study is to test the feasibility of developing lung cancer prognosis gene signatures by using genome-wide expression profiling of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples, which are widely available and provide...

Tumor specimens are often preserved as formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue blocks, the most common clinical source for DNA sequencing. Herein, we evaluated the effect of pre-sequencing parameters to guide proper sample selection for targeted gene sequencing. Data from 113 FFPE lung tumor specimens were collected, and targeted gene sequencing was performed. Libraries were constructed ...