Single cell cloning and sequencing of patient-matched Barrett's, Dysplasia, and Esophageal adenocarcinoma

Esophageal adenocarcinoma evolves from dysplastic and intestinal metaplasia over a period of several decades. Understanding the precise mutational events that accompany the transition from early and late stage Barrett's, low-and high-grade dysplasia, and finally adenocarcinoma well enhance our understanding of this and perhaps a majority of epithelial cancers. Towards this end, we have been analyzing these lesions at the level of single clonogenic cells that can be expanded for DNA sequencing to assess all mutations at each stage. This analysis is providing data at higher resolution than possible by analysis of whole biopsies of these different lesions