Correction of the cytosine deamination artifacts in FFPE-based sequencing experiments

Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples are widely used in research and diagnostics, but cytosine deamination during fixation introduces sequencing artifacts, particularly C>T substitutions, which complicate reliable mutation detection. In this study, we systematically evaluated five computational methods and an enzymatic repair approach for FFPE artifact removal, as well as their combined application, using a custom dataset based on whole exome sequencing. Our results demonstrate that while computational strategies improve data quality, the enzymatic approach provides the most effective artifact correction. The study provides guidelines for both computational and enzymatic artifact correction strategies for reliable downstream analyses.

• Type: Transcriptome Sequencing
• Archiver: European Genome-Phenome Archive (EGA)