Next-Generation Sequencing Technology to Identify Minimal Residual Disease in Lymphoid Malignancies

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) of immunoglobulin (IG) and T cell receptor (TR) rearrangements represents a modern alternative to classical RQ-PCR-based minimal residual disease (MRD) detection. The same primer sets and conditions can be used for all patients, which is undoubtedly one of the most important benefits of NGS, not only reducing the labor required to perform the analysis but also enabling the assay to comply with the upcoming EU IVD regulation. So far, only one standardized academic protocol for this task has been published, developed, and validated within the EuroClonality-NGS working group. In this chapter we describe the materials and methods for amplicon library preparation for sequencing on Illumina MiSeq, and the bioinformatic pipeline for this protocol.