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Updated: Jul 3, 2026
Detection and Monitoring of Tumor Associated Circulating DNA in Patient Biofluids
Published on: June 8, 2019
Epigenetic Liquid Biopsy Enables Universal Mutation-Agnostic Molecular Surveillance for High-Risk Neuroblastoma
Nurit Gal-Mark1, Assaf Grunwald2, Valid Gahramanov2
1Schneider Children's Medical Center Petach Tikva Israel.
Purpose:
Liquid biopsy monitoring in pediatric solid tumors is limited by low mutational burden and lack of trackable genomic drivers. We sought to develop a mutation-agnostic, methylation-based liquid biopsy framework enabling universal molecular surveillance of high-risk neuroblastoma.
Experimental Design:
Using whole-genome Oxford Nanopore Technologies sequencing of high-risk neuroblastoma tumors, we compared tumor-derived methylation profiles to a comprehensive atlas of normal human cell types and identified 72 neuroblastoma-specific differentially methylated regions (meNBLs) that were reliably detectable in cfDNA. Marker robustness and specificity were validated using independent neuroblastoma methylation datasets and assessed against methylation profiles from other cancer types. We established neuroblastoma as a distinct methylation entity within the reference atlas by integrating a panel of 25 meNBLs, enabling quantitative estimation of tumor-derived cfDNA. Assay performance was evaluated across diagnostic, remission, relapse, and healthy control samples and compared with mutation- and copy number-based approaches.
Results:
Neuroblastoma-derived cfDNA was consistently detected at diagnosis and relapse, but was absent in healthy controls and during confirmed remission. Methylation-based deconvolution demonstrated high specificity, with no detectable background signal in controls, and improved performance relative to copy number-based tumor fraction estimation. Longitudinal profiling enabled early molecular detection of relapse and reliable disease monitoring.
Conclusions:
We establish a robust, mutation-independent methylation-based liquid biopsy strategy for neuroblastoma that enables accurate, quantitative disease monitoring across all high-risk patients including those lacking trackable genomic alterations. This approach supports clinical translation of methylation-based cfDNA deconvolution as a broadly applicable platform for pediatric precision oncology.
