Plasma contains ultrashort single-stranded DNA in addition to nucleosomal cell-free DNA

• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104554
• Publication Date: 2022-06-08T17:08:20Z
• Authors: Jordan Cheng; Marco Morselli; Wei-Lun Huang; You Jeong Heo; Thalyta Pinheiro-...; Feng Li; Fang Wei; David Chia; Yong Kim; Hua-Jun He; Kenneth D. Cole; Wu-Chou Su; Matteo Pellegrini; David T.W. Wong
• Keywords: Cell-free fetal DNA; Multiple displacement amplification

Plasma cell-free DNA is being widely explored as a biomarker for clinical screening. Currently, methods are optimized the extraction and detection of double-stranded mononucleosomal ∼160bp in length. We introduce uscfDNA-seq, single-stranded next-generation sequencing pipeline, which bypasses previous limitations to reveal population ultrashort human plasma. This species has modal size 50nt distinctly separate from DNA. Treatment with specific nucleases suggests that primarily single-stranded. It distributed evenly across chromosomes similar distribution profile over functional elements genome, albeit an enrichment promoters, exons, introns, may be suggestive terminal state genome degradation. The examination this cfDNA could new features cell death pathways or it can used discovery.