Quantification of cancer driver mutations in human breast and lung DNA using targeted, error‐corrected CarcSeq

There is a need for scientifically‐sound, practical approaches to improve carcinogenicity testing. Advances in DNA sequencing technology and knowledge of events underlying cancer development have created an opportunity for progress in this area. The long‐term goal of this work is to develop variation in cancer driver mutation (CDM) levels as a metric of clonal expansion of cells carrying CDMs because these important early events could inform carcinogenicity testing. The first step toward this goal was to develop and validate an error‐corrected next‐generation sequencing method to analyze panels of hotspot cancer driver mutations (hCDMs). The “CarcSeq” method that was developed uses unique molecular identifier sequences to construct single‐strand consensus sequences for error correction. CarcSeq was used for mutational analysis of 13 amplicons encompassing >20 hotspot CDMs in normal breast, normal lung, ductal carcinomas, and lung adenocarcinomas. The approach was validated by detecting expected differences related to tissue type (normal vs. tumor and breast vs. lung) and mutation spectra. CarcSeq mutant fractions (MFs) correlated strongly with previously obtained ACB‐PCR mutant fraction (MF) measurements from the same samples. A reconstruction experiment, in conjunction with other analyses, showed CarcSeq accurately quantifies MFs ≥10(−4). CarcSeq MF measurements were correlated with tissue donor age and breast cancer risk. CarcSeq MF measurements were correlated with deviation from median MFs analyzed to assess clonal expansion. Thus, CarcSeq is a promising approach to advance cancer risk assessment and carcinogenicity testing practices. Paradigms that should be investigated to advance this strategy for carcinogenicity testing are proposed.