Real-time quantification of fusion transcripts with ligase chain reaction by direct ligation of adjacent DNA probes at fusion junction

Abstract

Gene fusions, produced by aberrant juxtapositions of two or more genes even in different chromosomes, play important roles in the primary oncogenic mechanism and have been demonstrated to be typically associated with many cancers. So the fused genes or the transcripts can be specific predictive biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and therapy. Herein, we develop a direct ligation- and ligase chain reaction (LCR)-based method for a fusion transcript assay. In virtue of the high selectivity of ligase and the exponential amplification capacity of LCR, the proposed method can detect as low as 1 fM fusion transcripts with high specificity and has been successfully applied to real samples. With the real-time fluorescence measurements, the fusion transcripts can be assayed in a simple way. Therefore, the proposed method can provide a simple and cost-effective platform for fusion transcript detection in routine laboratories and clinical diagnosis.