Refined detection and phasing of structural aberrations in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia by linked-read whole genome sequencing

We evaluated linked-read whole genome sequencing (WGS) for detection of structural chromosomal rearrangements in primary samples of varying DNA quality from 12 patients diagnosed with ALL. Linked-read WGS enabled precise, allele-specific, digital karyotyping at a base-pair resolution for a wide range of structural variants including complex rearrangements, aneuploidy assessment and gene deletions. Additional RNA-sequencing and copy number aberrations (CNA) data from Illumina Infinium arrays were also generated and assessed against the linked-read WGS data. RNA-sequencing data was used to support structural chromosomal rearrangements detected in the linked-read WGS data by detecting expressed fusion genes as a consequence of the rearrangements. Illumina Infinium arrays (450k array and/or SNP array) were used to assess CNA status to further support the findings in the linked-read WGS data. The processed CNA data from the primary ALL patient samples has been deposited to GEO. RNA-sequencing, linked-read WGS data, and raw SNP array data from the primary ALL patient samples will not be deposited because the patient/parent consent does not cover depositing data that may be used for large-scale determination of germline variants in a repository. The ALL samples were collected 10-20 years ago from pediatric patients aged 2-15 years, some whom have deceased. The linked-read WGS data and the RNA-sequencing data sets generated in the study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author [e-mail]. Refer to individual Series