Clinical Applications of PCR

Goswami, Rashmi S, Rashmi S. Goswami, Goswami, Rashmi S.

Rajyalakshmi Luthra, Rajesh R. Singh, Keyur P. Patel

With the advent of next-generation sequencing and its prolific use in the clinical realm, it would appear that techniques such as PCR would not be in high demand. This is not the case however, as PCR techniques play an important role in the success of NGS technology. Although NGS has rapidly become an important part of clinical molecular diagnostics, whole genome sequencing is still difficult to implement in a clinical laboratory due to high costs of sequencing, as well as issues surrounding data processing, analysis, and data storage, which can reduce efficiency and increase turnaround times. As a result, targeted sequencing is often used in clinical diagnostics, due to its increased efficiency. PCR techniques play an integral role in targeted NGS sequencing, allowing for the generation of multiple NGS libraries and the sequencing of multiple targeted regions simultaneously. We will outline the methods we employ in PCR amplification of targeted genomic regions for cancer mutation hotspots using the Ampliseq Cancer Hotspot v2 panel (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA).