The Role of RNA Sequencing in Cancer Molecular Profiling

RNA Data Is Playing an Increasing Role in Determining Therapy, Augmenting Conventional Testing Including Flow Cytometry, Immunohistochemistry, FISH and Morphology. RNA-seq allows us to quantify expression of genes, detect fusions, improve the sensitivity of detecting mutations, determine B- and T-cell clonality, explore alternative splicing and exon skipping. With proper normalization and controls, RNA expression can be used to provide data similar to that seen in flow cytometry and in immunohistochemistry. RNA expression when used with the proper machine learning algorithm and training data can be used to help in diagnosis and classification of various cancers, predict clinical response to therapy and overall clinical behavior.