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Grant Details

Grant Number: 5R21CA202875-03 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator: Larman, Harry
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Project Title: A Highly Multiplexed Gene Expression Platform for Fixed Tissue Specimens
Fiscal Year: 2018


Abstract

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The technologies presented in this application have the potential to greatly expand the molecular toolbox available to the researchers and pathologists who analyze cancer patient tissue specimens. Our proposal details the development of a new methodology to simultaneously measure the expression of a large number of genes in formalin fixed and paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue sections. Alternative approaches begin with extraction of damaged, relatively low quality RNA, which limits downstream analysis. In contrast, our system takes advantage of the crosslinked RNA molecules to obtain amplifiable signals in situ, which provides several distinct advantages related to assay sensitivity and workflow simplicity. Importantly, our system utilizes widely available instrumentation and reagents, making it immediately accessible to researchers and clinicians. We seek to achieve three overlapping goals in this project: 1. Development of a robust system to generate PCR amplifiable signals in situ using FFPE tumor sections. The success of this effort will provide the research and clinical community with a completely new method of performing gene expression analysis of FFPE specimens and fixed suspension cells. 2. Integration with high throughput DNA sequencing analysis. High throughput, or "next generation" DNA sequencing (NGS) is a powerful technology for analyzing complex mixtures of DNA sequences. We propose to integrate our new methodology with NGS analysis for the highly multiplexed measurement of gene expression in FFPE specimens. 3. Multiplexed measurement of spatially resolved gene expression. This part of the project is devoted to the development of a novel methodology for measuring a large number of genes in FFPE sections or fixed cell spreads, while retaining single cell resolution of the original tissue. To this end, e propose to adapt recently developed techniques for 'local' DNA amplification. Such a system has the potential to dramatically increase the amount of information that researchers and pathologists are able to glean by analyzing a single microscope slide.



Publications

Highly multiplexed oligonucleotide probe-ligation testing enables efficient extraction-free SARS-CoV-2 detection and viral genotyping.
Authors: Credle J.J. , Robinson M.L. , Gunn J. , Monaco D. , Sie B. , Tchir A. , Hardick J. , Zheng X. , Shaw-Saliba K. , Rothman R.E. , et al. .
Source: Modern pathology : an official journal of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, Inc, 2021 Jun; 34(6), p. 1093-1103.
EPub date: 2021-02-03.
PMID: 33536572
Related Citations

Highly multiplexed oligonucleotide probe-ligation testing enables efficient extraction-free SARS-CoV-2 detection and viral genotyping.
Authors: Credle J.J. , Robinson M.L. , Gunn J. , Monaco D. , Sie B. , Tchir A. , Hardick J. , Zheng X. , Shaw-Saliba K. , Rothman R.E. , et al. .
Source: bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, 2020-06-03; , .
EPub date: 2020-06-03.
PMID: 32577648
Related Citations

Long-adapter single-strand oligonucleotide probes for the massively multiplexed cloning of kilobase genome regions.
Authors: Tosi L. , Sridhara V. , Yang Y. , Guan D. , Shpilker P. , Segata N. , Larman H.B. , Parekkadan B. .
Source: Nature biomedical engineering, 2017; 1, .
EPub date: 2017-06-26.
PMID: 29152409
Related Citations




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