Copy number variations in AR-associated and DNA repair genes from plasma cell-free DNA of metastatic CRPC patients.

281 Background: Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) present in the plasma of advanced cancer patients can reflect tumor related genetic alterations. Recent data suggests copy number variations (CNVs) in AR-associated and DNA repair pathway genes play a potential role in prostate cancer progression. Here, we performed sequencing of cfDNA from 13 mCRPC patients to evaluate its potential in elucidating tumor related genetic variations. The long-term goal of our project is to correlate cfDNA derived genetic alterations with prostate cancer progression and/or therapeutic resistance/responses. Methods: cfDNA was isolated from 13 advanced mCRPC patient plasma samples using the Qiagen circulating nucleic acid kit. 100ng of cfDNA was utilized for library construction; and the libraries were paired-end sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq 2000. The resulting data was analyzed using the GATK best practices bioinformatics pipeline and the visualized using the SNP & Variation Suite v8.x. Results: The bioanalyzer profiles of cfDNA derive...