Detection of Activated KRAS from Cancer Patient Peripheral Blood Using a Weighted Enzymatic Chip Array

The KRAS mutation test is recommended that it may determine which patients with advanced colorectal or lung cancer are eligible for anti- EGFR targeted therapies. Traditional molecular techniques such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) combined direct sequencing are limited by the difficulty of obtaining patients' cancer tissues for analysis. Finding an alternative method to detect KRAS gene mutation is important. This study aims to estimate the effi- ciency of Activating KRAS Detection Chip using a weighted enzymatic chip ar- ray (WEnCA) platform, which was successfully established in our previous study, in detect ing activated KRAS mutations from the peripheral blood of can- cer patients. The paired tumor tissue and peripheral blood specimens were col- lected from 377 patients with colorectal or non-small cell lung cancer. DNA were extracted from tissue samples and applied to detect KRAS mutation using direct sequencing. RNA were extracted from peripheral blood samples and ap- plied to detect the activated KRAS mutation using WEnCA. Results showed 122 tumor specimens with KRAS m utation, of which 112 were positive through WEnCA. The sensitivity , specificity and accuracy of WEnCA analysis for de- tecting activated KRAS mutation in peripheral blood were 91.8%, 94.5% and 93.6%, respectively. This study demonstrated that WEnCA is a sensitive, easier interpretation, and a convenient technique for detecting the circulating KRAS mutant from the peripheral blood of cancer patients.