Using FFPE Tissue in Genomic Analyses: Advantages, Disadvantages and the Role of Biospecimen Science

Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue blocks are considered by some to be suboptimal for Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) because, compared with fresh-frozen (FF) biospecimens, the nucleic acid obtained from them is fragmented and low in quantity, containing formalin-induced modifications and mutations. However, clinical workflows do not typically have the capability to collect FF tissue, so there is an inherent necessity to perform NGS using FFPE tissue. We review relevant literature that addresses the issue of extracting DNA from FFPE tissue biospecimens then applying it to NGS.