Cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) is available in the maternal circulation throughout pregnancy and can be used for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis including, determination of fetal sex, identification of specific single gene disorders, typing of fetal blood groups (RhD), paternity determination and potentially routine use for Down’s syndrome (DS) testing of all pregnancies. I searched published lite...

The existence of cell free DNA in the human circulatory system has been known since the 1950s, however, intensive research in this area has been conducted for the last ten years. This review paper brings a short overview of the existing literature concerning the cell free DNA research in various clinical fields and pathological states and considers the application possibilities of this new anal...

Prediction of fetal DNA allows diagnosing known/passed mutations before child’s birth. Public health significance of such early testing is that it can reassure parents who have negative results and offers timely information for those with abnormal results. My dissertation work presents a new approach of reconstructing fetal DNA from maternal plasma. The method works because plasma from pregnant...

Fetal microchimerism has been suggested to play contradictory roles in women's health, with factors including age of the recipient, time elapsed since microchimerism occurred, and microchimeric cell type modulating disease. Both beneficial and harmful effects have been identified in wound healing and tissue regeneration, immune mediated disease, and cancer. This area of research is relatively n...

Pregnancy and development are known to modify carcinogenesis. Little is known about the mechanism for the modulation. These studies inves tigated the relative sensitivity of nonpregnant, pregnant, and fetal mice to the induction of covalent DNA modifications and micronucleated erythrocytes by 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide (4-NQO). Our results revealed that 4-NQO was bound to guanine nucleotides of D...

OBJECTIVE The fraction of circulating cell-free fetal (cff) DNA in maternal plasma is a critical parameter for aneuploidy screening with non-invasive prenatal testing, especially for those samples located in equivocal zones. We developed an approach to quantify cff DNA fractions directly with sequencing data, and increased cff DNAs by optimizing library construction procedure. METHODS Artific...

BACKGROUND Scar formation and subglottic stenosis often cause health problems in surgical otolaryngology. However, fetal wounds demonstrate scarless healing. The underlying mechanism remains poorly understood. We isolated differentially expressed genes by comparison between nonwounded with wounded skin of fetal and adult rabbits. METHODS Skin incisional wounds were made in fetal (21 to 23 day...

BACKGROUND Cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) constitutes approximately 10% of the cell-free DNA in maternal plasma and is a suitable source of fetal genetic material for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD). The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility of using digital PCR for NIPD in pregnancies at risk of sickle cell anemia. METHODS Minor-groove binder (MGB) TaqMan probes were d...

BACKGROUND: We investigated fetal and total DNA levels in maternal plasma in patients bearing fetuses affected with Down syndrome in comparison to controls carrying fetuses with normal karyotype. METHODS: DNA levels in maternal plasma were measured using real-time quantitative PCR using SRY and beta-globin genes as markers. Twenty-one pregnant women with a singleton fetus at a gestational age r...