Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2016 Jun;32(6):360-371.
doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2016.03.009. Epub 2016 Apr 26.

The Long and Short of Circulating Cell-Free DNA and the Ins and Outs of Molecular Diagnostics

Peiyong Jiang  1 , Y M Dennis Lo  2
Affiliations
Review

The Long and Short of Circulating Cell-Free DNA and the Ins and Outs of Molecular Diagnostics

Peiyong Jiang et al. Trends Genet. 2016 Jun.

Abstract

The discovery of cell-free tumor and fetal DNA molecules in the plasma of cancer patients and pregnant women, respectively, has opened up exciting opportunities in molecular diagnosis. The understanding of the biological properties of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) molecules would be essential for us to make the best use of such molecules in different clinical settings. In this review we start by exploring the technologies that have been used for analyzing the size profiles of cfDNA in plasma. We then review the size profiles of cfDNA in different clinical scenarios, including cancer, pregnancy, transplantation, and autoimmune diseases. Finally, we discuss the potential diagnostic applications of plasma DNA size profiling.

Keywords: cell-free DNA; liquid biopsy; size profile.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types