WAWABILITY July 11–12, 2025 Washington DC. Big ideas. Bold Progress. Global Impact. Powered by TDIforAccess.
WAWABILITY July 11–12, 2025 Washington DC. Big ideas. Bold Progress. Global Impact. Powered by TDIforAccess.

B-G.01: Circulating DNA reveals nucleosome occupancy patterns that are associated with nucleosome-DNA affinity and are affected in cancer

Keywords

cirDNA, machine learning, nucleosomes, cancer detection
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The study of cell-free circulating DNA (cirDNA) fragments (fragmentomics) from liquid biopsies has received increasing attention. By mapping a large ensemble of well-positioned nucleosomes (WPNs), we found that nucleosome occupancy was associated with histone-DNA affinity, as evidenced by codon usage bias and differences in cirDNA fragment sizes. Moreover, nucleosome occupancy was different in healthy and cancer samples, thus allowing developing a high-performance machine learning approach for cancer detection (specificity and sensitivity >0.95 for seven cancer types in Cristiano et al., 2016, data). Cancer influenced nucleosome occupancy in a global manner, although distinct cancer types retained specific features. WPN occupancy at transcription factor binding sites revealed shared, pan-cancer regulation of transcriptional programs involved in hematopoietic cell differentiation and neutrophil biology, the main cirDNA sources. This work provides new fundamental insights into cirDNA and DNA sequence using cirDNA as a physical readout. It also bares translational significance by disclosing a new high-performance strategy for cancer detection from liquid biopsies. Co-authors: Ekaterina Pisareva, Alain Thierry, Jacques Colinge

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