Biological Fragmentation of Circulating Cell-free DNA Alters Genetic Representation

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

High-throughput sequencing of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) as liquid biopsy has revolutionized tumor genome profiling by providing a more accurate, longitudinal, real-time and non-invasive mean for precision and personalized medicine. Current knowledge on cfDNA characteristics revealed that it exists mainly as double-stranded molecules, resulting from biological fragmentation into both short (<1 kb) and long segments (>10 kb) [1,2]. Short fractions are mostly derived from apoptosis via the activation of cellular endonucleases leading to the cleavage of chromatin DNA into inter-nucleosomal fragments [3], whereas necrosis generates relatively long fragments of DNA.