Analytical Validation of Multiplex Biomarker Assay to Stratify Colorectal Cancer into Molecular Subtypes

International audience; Previously, we classified colorectal cancers (CRCs) into five CRCAssigner (CRCA) subtypes with different prognoses and potential treatment responses, later consolidated into four consensus molecular subtypes (CMS). Here we demonstrate the analytical development and validation of a custom NanoString nCounter platform-based biomarker assay (NanoCRCA) to stratify CRCs into subtypes. To reduce costs, we switched from the standard nCounter protocol to a custom modified protocol. The assay included a reduced 38-gene panel that was selected using an in-house machine-learning pipeline. We applied NanoCRCA to 413 samples from 355 CRC patients. From the fresh frozen samples (n…