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Updated: May 7, 2026

Employing Digital Droplet PCR to Detect BRAF V600E Mutations in Formalin-fixed Paraffin-embedded Reference Standard Cell Lines
Published on: October 8, 2015
Colorectal cancers from distinct ancestral populations show variations in BRAF mutation frequency
Megan C Hanna1, Christina Go, Christine Roden
1Center for Cancer Genome Discovery, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America ; Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America ; The Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Abstract:
It has been demonstrated for some cancers that the frequency of somatic oncogenic mutations may vary in ancestral populations. To determine whether key driver alterations might occur at different frequencies in colorectal cancer, we applied a high-throughput genotyping platform (OncoMap) to query 385 mutations across 33 known cancer genes in colorectal cancer DNA from 83 Asian, 149 Black and 195 White patients. We found that Asian patients had fewer canonical oncogenic mutations in the genes tested (60% vs Black 79% (P = 0.011) and White 77% (P = 0.015)), and that BRAF mutations occurred at a higher frequency in White patients (17% vs Asian 4% (P = 0.004) and Black 7% (P = 0.014)). These results suggest that the use of genomic approaches to elucidate the different ancestral determinants harbored by patient populations may help to more precisely and effectively treat colorectal cancer.
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