Comparative benchmarking of optical genome mapping and chromosomal microarray reveals high technological concordance in CNV identification and structural variant refinement

Abstract

PURPOSEThe recommended practice for individuals suspected of a genetic etiology for disorders including unexplained developmental delay/intellectual disability (DD/ID), autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and multiple congenital anomalies (MCA) involves a genetic testing workflow including chromosomal microarray (CMA), Fragile-X testing, karyotype analysis, and/or sequencing based gene panels. Since genomic imbalances are often found to be causative, CMA is recommended as first tier testing for many indications. Optical genome mapping (OGM) is an emerging next generation cytogenomic technique that can detect not only copy number variants (CNVs), triploidy and absence of heterozygosity (AOH) like CMA, but can also define the location of duplications, and detect other structural variants (SVs), including balanced rearrangements and repeat expansions/contractions. This study compares OGM to CMA for clinically reported genomic variants, some of which have additional structural characterization with fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). METHODSOGM was performed on IRB approved, de-identified specimen from 55 individuals with unbalanced genomic abnormalities previously identified by CMA (61 clinically reported abnormalities). SVs identified by OGM were filtered by a control database to remove polymorphic variants and against an established gene list to prioritize clinically relevant findings before comparing with CMA and FISH results. RESULTSTOGM results showed 100% concordance with CMA findings for pathogenic variants and 98% concordant for all pathogenic/likely pathogenic/variants of uncertain significance (VUS), while also providing additional insight into the genomic structure of abnormalities that CMA was unable to provide. CONCLUSIONOGM demonstrates equivalent or superior performance to CMA and adds to an increasing body of evidence on the analytical validity and ability to detect clinically relevant abnormalities identified by CMA. Moreover, OGM identifies translocations, structures of duplications and complex CNVs intractable by CMA, yielding additional clinical utility.