Dielectrophoretic recovery of DNA from plasma for the identification of chronic lymphocytic leukemia point mutations.

Aim: Circulating cell free (ccf) DNA contains information about mutations affecting chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The complexity of isolating DNA from plasma inhibits the development of point-of-care diagnostics. Here, we introduce an electrokinetic method that enables rapid recovery of DNA from plasma.
Materials & Methods: ccf-DNA was isolated from 25 µl of CLL plasma using dielectrophoresis. The DNA was used for PCR amplification, sequencing and analysis.
Results: The ccf-DNA collected from plasma of 5 CLL patients revealed identical mutations to those previously identified by extracting DNA from CLL cells from the same patients.
Conclusion: Rapid dielectrophoresis isolation of ccf-DNA directly from plasma provides sufficient amounts of DNA to use for identification of point mutations in genes associated with CLL progression.
Competing Interests: Financial & competing interests disclosure The DEP technology used in the study was the result of original research carried out by the MJ Heller laboratory at the UCSD Moores Cancer Center under NIH NCI NanoTumor Center Grant (U54-CA119335). The work was also funded in part by NIH SBIR grant 1R43CA183414-01. Other than MJ Heller who is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Biological Dynamics (La Jolla, CA), no other authors have any relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.