Fig. 1

Differences in global fragmentation between cfDNA from CRC patients and healthy controls. A Heat map showing enrichment or decrease in cfDNA fragments from 90 to 410 bp according to their length as z-scores of each sample compared to healthy controls. B Short cfDNA fragments (90–150 bp) are significantly enriched in samples collected from CRC patients with clinically diagnosed tumor burden. C Only for samples collected in the beginning of therapy a significantly enriched fraction of short fragments can be observed. D At diagnosis a significant enrichment in short fragments was only observed in patients with stage IV CRC. (ns: p-value ≤ 1; *: p-value ≤ 5*10^–2, **: p-value ≤ 1*10^–2, ***: p-value ≤ 1*10^–3, ****: p-value ≤ 1*10^–4)