A study, published on Jan. 20 in PNAS, identifies cell-free DNA as a highly versatile analyte for monitoring of the most important complications of hematopoietic cell transplantation: Graft-Versus-Host Disease, infection, graft failure and disease relapse.
Hematopoietic cell transplantation is the gold standard treatment for many blood disorders, including blood cancers. Nonetheless, frequent post-transplant complications limit the long-term benefit of HCT.
The authors have found that therapeutic complications can be informed from a single cell-free DNA sequencing assay followed by disease-specific bioinformatic analyses. This test requires only low coverage DNA sequencing and is compatible with small volumes of blood. Cell-free DNA may improve the care of allogeneic HCT recipients by enabling earlier detection and better prediction of the complex array of complications that occur after HCT.
Hence, this important publication presents a great opportunity for NucleoCapture columns to be used for diagnostic purposes, where cell-free DNA fragments can be progressively removed from a patient’s blood using histone conjugated polymer beads and used to monitor post-treatment complications.