ARUP Laboratories and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Form Partnership to Offer High-resolution HLA genotyping by Next Generation Sequencing

SALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 8, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ARUP Laboratories announced today that they will be offering high-resolution HLA genotyping by next generation sequencing (NGS) under an agreement with The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

"Our agreement with CHOP enables ARUP to offer this innovative test to our clients to help aid decisions in bone marrow transplantation. We are very pleased to include this testing as part of our comprehensive menu of services," said Jerry Hussong, MD, ARUP's chief medical officer and director of laboratories.

HLA Genotyping and NGS

HLA genotyping is used for identifying the best recipient/donor match combination prior to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). HLA genes are the most polymorphic gene family found in the entire human genome, with more than 10,000 different HLA alleles reported so far. Currently, the standard of care for HLA genotyping to select a donor for HSCT is to use a low/intermediate resolution SSO/SSP test first and then reflex the candidates to confirmatory Sanger Sequence Based Typing (SBT) to obtain higher resolution allele information to finalize the matched donor. Sanger SBT produces incomplete and ambiguous results by analyzing only sections of the HLA genes and failing to distinguish among different alleles due to difficulty with resolving cis/trans chromosomal positions of those alleles. NGS is able to overcome the limitations of Sanger SBT by performing large number of long clonal sequencing reactions, allowing reporting of complete and unambiguous HLA genotyping results.

Dimitri Monos, PhD, director of the Immunogenetics Laboratory in the Division of Genomics Diagnostics of the Department of Pathology at CHOP, has pioneered the development and clinical laboratory validation of a novel NGS HLA genotyping assay. CHOP's Immunogenetics laboratory is currently the only laboratory in the United States to offer HLA genotyping by NGS to its clinical programs. HLA genotyping by NGS has also been adopted by several HLA laboratories in Europe and in Australia. "This new test addresses a 60-year old problem. Since the discovery of HLAs in the early 1950s, it has been a challenge to accurately and thoroughly characterize HLA gene sequences. We have now used NGS tools to significantly advance HLA genotyping. This is the first technology that gives results free of any current or future ambiguities," says Dr. Monos. "We are pleased to be able to provide this test to ARUP Laboratories' customers. It allows us to provide greater access to our tests," said Dr. Robert Doms, pathologist-in-chief at CHOP.

ARUP Laboratories is a national reference laboratory owned by the University of Utah offering esoteric testing in the United States. ARUP has significant experience in molecular tests. "We are very impressed with the quality and capability of the Immunogenetics lab at CHOP. We are convinced that patients waiting for HSCT will greatly benefit from the complete high-resolution allelic information that CHOP's NGS HLA typing test offers," stated Julio Delgado, MD, director of research & development and director of the Immunogenetics laboratory at ARUP, who visited CHOP's Immunogenetics laboratory to evaluate the method developed by Dr. Monos and his team. "HLA typing by NGS will replace preliminary and reflexive tests with a single test, reducing costs and time during the matching process. In the future, I envision all HLA typing, except for cadaver organs, being done by NGS. It is time for more patients and transplant centers across the United States to have access to this remarkable and innovative test," concluded Dr. Delgado. ARUP will begin offering two HLA tests, HLA Class I (A, B, and C) and HLA Class II (DRB1 and DQB1) by Next-Generation Sequencing, beginning November 17, 2014.

About The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program receives the highest amount of National Institutes of Health funding among all U.S. children's hospitals. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 535-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu.

About ARUP Laboratories

Founded in 1984, ARUP Laboratories is a leading national reference laboratory and a nonprofit enterprise of the University of Utah and its Department of Pathology. ARUP offers more than 3,000 tests and test combinations, ranging from routine screening tests to esoteric molecular and genetic assays. ARUP serves clients across the United States, including many of the nation's top university teaching hospitals and children's hospitals, as well as multihospital groups, major commercial laboratories, group purchasing organizations, military and other government facilities, and major clinics. In addition, ARUP is a worldwide leader in innovative laboratory research and development, led by the efforts of the ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology®. For more information, visit http://www.aruplab.com.