The first article is Green et al., "Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium: Accelerating Evidence-based Practice of Genomic Medicine," available here.
The second is Amendola et al., "Performance of ACMG-AMP Variant Interpretation Guidelines among Nine Laboratoris in the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium," available here.
Abstracts are clipped below the break.
In August 2016, AMP is running open registration for a program called VITAL, Variant Interpretation Testing Across Laboratories - details here.
Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium: Accelerating Evidence-Based Practice of Genomic Medicine (Green et al.)
Despite rapid technical progress and demonstrable effectiveness for some types of diagnosis and therapy, much remains to be learned about clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) and its role within the practice of medicine. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) consortium includes 18 extramural research projects, one National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) intramural project, and a coordinating center funded by the NHGRI and National Cancer Institute. The consortium is exploring analytic and clinical validity and utility, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of sequencing via multidisciplinary approaches; it has thus far recruited 5,577 participants across a spectrum of symptomatic and healthy children and adults by utilizing both germline and cancer sequencing. The CSER consortium is analyzing data and creating publically available procedures and tools related to participant preferences and consent, variant classification, disclosure and management of primary and secondary findings, health outcomes, and integration with electronic health records.
Future research directions will refine measures of clinical utility of CGES in both germline and somatic testing, evaluate the use of CGES for screening in healthy individuals, explore the penetrance of pathogenic variants through extensive phenotyping, reduce discordances in public databases of genes and variants, examine social and ethnic disparities in the provision of genomics services, explore regulatory issues, and estimate the value and downstream costs of sequencing. The CSER consortium has established a shared community of research sites by using diverse approaches to pursue the evidence-based development of best practices in genomic medicine.Performance of ACMG-AMP Variant-Interpretation Guidelines among Nine Laboratories in the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium (Amendola et al.)
Evaluating the pathogenicity of a variant is challenging given the plethora of types of genetic evidence that laboratories consider. Deciding how to weigh each type of evidence is difficult, and standards have been needed. In 2015, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) and the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) published guidelines for the assessment of variants in genes associated with Mendelian diseases.
Nine molecular diagnostic laboratories involved in the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) consortium piloted these guidelines on 99 variants spanning all categories (pathogenic, likely pathogenic, uncertain significance, likely benign, and benign). Nine variants were distributed to all laboratories, and the remaining 90 were evaluated by three laboratories. The laboratories classified each variant by using both the laboratory’s own method and the ACMG-AMP criteria. The agreement between the two methods used within laboratories was high (K-alpha = 0.91) with 79% concordance.
However, there was only 34% concordance for either classification system across laboratories. After consensus discussions and detailed review of the ACMG-AMP criteria, concordance increased to 71%.
Causes of initial discordance in ACMG-AMP classifications were identified, and recommendations on clarification and increased specification of the ACMG-AMP criteria were made. In summary, although an initial pilot of the ACMG-AMP guidelines did not lead to increased concordance in variant interpretation, comparing variant interpretations to identify differences and having a common framework to facilitate resolution of those differences were beneficial for improving agreement, allowing iterative movement toward increased reporting consistency for variants in genes associated with monogenic disease.
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Footnote.
Similar issues exist outside clinical work; for an August 2016 review article on seven approaches to genotyping, in soybeans, see PLoS here, and article about it at Genomeweb, here.