Correlation of Mutations Detected in Liquid and Tissue Biopsies Using the Maxwell® RSC

This application note describes a method for purifying nucleic acids using the Maxwell® RSC instrument, based on novel surface and binding chemistries. Circulating cell-free DNA (ccfDNA) in plasma can be used to detect biomarkers that show great promise for diagnosis and monitoring of cancer, giving rise to the possibility of liquid biopsies that obviate the need for invasive tissue collection. This protocol is completely automated, decreasing the chance of user error or contamination and sixteen samples of up to 1ml can be processed in 80 minutes, making next generation sequencing of DNA a viable potential method for screening plasma in a form of liquid biopsy.