Application of UCAD for Diagnosing Urothelial Carcinoma.

Chromosomal instability (CIN) refers to ongoing chromosome segregation errors throughout consecutive cell divisions. CIN is a hallmark of human cancer, and it is associated with poor prognosis, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance. Analyzing CIN of the DNA extracted from urothelial cells in urine samples seems a promising method for diagnosing, monitoring, and predicting the prognosis of bladder cancer patients. CIN can be assessed using experimental techniques such as bulk DNA sequencing, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), or conventional karyotyping. However, these techniques are either time-consuming or non-specific. We here intend to study whether a new method named Ultrasensitive Chromosomal Aneuploidy Detection (UCAD), which is based on low-coverage whole-genome sequencing, can be used to analyze CIN thus help diagnosing and treating bladder cancer patients.