Advancing Precision Oncology: New NGS Assay for Comprehensive Genomic Profiling

Agilent Technologies Inc has unveiled the Agilent SureSelect Cancer CGP Assay, a next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel designed for somatic variant profiling in a wide range of solid tumour types. This pan-cancer assay incorporates 679 genes curated from leading cancer databases in collaboration with clinical cancer researchers, expanding the number of biomarkers available for comprehensive genomic profiling. The assay features an efficient, automatable, and flexible workflow, making it accessible to the broader clinical research community.

The biomarkers included in the assay cover various classes of somatic variants, such as SNVs, CNVs, indels, translocations, and de novo gene fusions, as well as immuno-oncology biomarkers like TMB (tumour mutational burden) and MSI (microsatellite instability). These biomarkers provide valuable insights for clinical and translational researchers investigating potential cancer therapeutics. Leveraging Agilent's industry-leading library prep and target enrichment chemistry, this high-performance assay supports input as low as 10 ng and incorporates walkaway automation to enhance lab efficiency and productivity.

The workflow of the SureSelect Cancer CGP Assay offers flexible data analysis options, including Alissa Interpret for tertiary analysis and reporting, customer bioinformatics pipelines, and third-party software. This comprehensive NGS assay from Agilent empowers precision oncology research by providing up-to-date and globally curated biomarker content for robust molecular profiling of solid tumours.

“We’re pleased to commercialise the SureSelect Cancer CGP assay, which leverages our SureSelect chemistry that can accommodate a low amount of starting material so that scientists can profile more quantity-limited samples,” explained Ronda Allen, PhD, Vice President and General Manager, Genomics Division at Agilent. “Library preparation and target enrichment can be automated either on the benchtop Magnis NGS prep system, which will markedly improve workflow efficiency, reducing the hands-on time from hours to only 15 minutes, or on the Bravo NGS workstation, for scaling up to 96 samples per run.”  

Dr Alistair Ritchie, Sequencing Laboratory Manager at Glasgow Precision Oncology Laboratory (GPOL), shared his experience with the assay. “The comprehensive coverage of the CGP assay means we can batch DNA from any solid tumour on a single run to streamline our workflow,” he said. “Our team has come to rely on the Agilent SureSelect XT HS2 method for all our target enrichment assays. We have never used a method that gives us such reproducible results with such a low input amount.”