Quality and Quantity of Nucleic Acids Extracted from Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded Lymphoma Biopsies from Nigerian Archived Biopsy.

Background: Integrity of nucleic acids derived from archived formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) cancer specimens affects diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy. Several factors affect the quality and quantity of extracted nucleic acids and one of such factors is storage period.

Aim: We investigated the impact of storage duration on the quality and quantity of nucleic acids extracted from archived FFPE lymphoma biopsies in Nigeria.

Materials And Methods: A total of 53 FFPE biopsies diagnosed as lymphoma stored over several years (2008-2019) were analyzed. They were 22 chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cases, 17 Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) cases, and 14 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified (DLBCL, NOS). DNA was extracted from all the lymphoma samples which were analyzed for integrity and amplifiability using the four pairs of control genes polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers of BIOMED-2 protocol, whereas RNA extraction was from 6 CLL cases used for qPCR analysis of RNU43.

Results: For CLL, the mean DNA yield was 193.6 ng/µl (range: 3.0-533.0 ng/µl), whereas the mean A260/A280 ratio was 1.7 (1.2-1.9). For DLBCL, NOS, and HL, 255.5 ng/µl (range: 32.9-605.4 ng/µl), 1.8 (1.5-2.0) and 242.7 ng/µl (range: 1.3-886.0 ng/µl), and 1.7 (0.9-1.8), respectively. The extracted DNA gave amplifiable products of at least 200bp, whereas the RNA analysis showed CT values of <38 in all the samples. The mean RNA yield was 462.2 ng/µl (range: 74.7-1082.1), whereas the mean A260/A280 was 1.7 (1.5-1.8).

Conclusion: Quantity and quality of nucleic acids from FFPE tissues stored for different time periods showed no significant difference in yield and quality.