The discovery of cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) in maternal plasma has opened up new possibilities for non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD). Real-time PCR protocols as well as MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry techniques have been developed to determine fetal RHD genotype on maternal plasma. In several European centers, NIPD for fetal RHD has become the standard of care for evaluation of anti-D allo-...

background: in most cancer cases, the treatment choice for a pregnant patient is radiotherapy. in these patients, the abdomen is usually not exposed therefore fetus exposure is due to peripheral dose (pd). the purpose of this study was to estimate the fetal dose (the maximum pd in each pregnancy stage) for modalities available and to fabricate and evaluate a generally applicable fetal shield. m...

The analysis of circulating nucleic acids has revealed applications in the noninvasive diagnosis, monitoring, and prognostication of many clinical conditions. Circulating fetal-specific sequences have been detected and constitute a fraction of the total DNA in maternal plasma. The diagnostic reliability of circulating DNA analysis depends on the fractional concentration of the targeted sequence...

Background: Fetal sex determination is useful for families at risk of X-linked disorders, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, adrenal hypoplasia, hemophilia. At first, this could be obtained through invasive procedures such as amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling, having a 1% risk of miscarriage. Since the discovery of cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) in maternal plasma, noninvasive prenata...

serum (compared with plasma) was attributable to the release of DNA by hematopoietic cells during the clotting process (11 ). This concentration decreased by 74-fold in formaldehyde-treated serum, highlighting its cell-stabilizing effect. We observed no differences in fetal DNA concentrations in the samples treated or not treated with EDTA and formaldehyde. These results support the notion that...

Objectives of this study were to evaluate maternal and fetal influences on development of gravid uterine tissues of cows. Brahman cows with Brahman or Charolais fetuses and Charolais cows with Brahman or Charolais fetuses were used. Cows were killed 232 +/- .5 or 271 +/- .7 d after mating. The gravid uterus of each cow was weighed and dissected into its component parts. Weights of the fetus, fe...

OBJECTIVE The detection of paternally inherited sequences in maternal plasma, such as the SRY gene for fetal sexing or RHD for fetal blood group genotyping, is becoming part of daily routine in diagnostic laboratories. Due to the low percentage of fetal DNA, it is crucial to ensure sample stability and the efficiency of DNA extraction. We evaluated blood stability at 4°C for at least 24 hours a...

BACKGROUND Blood cell antigens may cause maternal alloimmunization leading to fetal/newborn disorders. Non-invasive prenatal diagnostics (NIPD) of the blood group permits the determination of feto-maternal incompatibility. AIM To evaluate 14 years of blood group NIPD at the Institute of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine (IHTM) in Warsaw. METHODS Plasma DNA from 536 RhD-negative, 24 Rhc-ne...

We developed a protocol of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), employing a higher-resolution picodroplet digital PCR, to detect genetic imbalance in maternal plasma DNA (mpDNA) caused by cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA). In the present study, this approach was applied to four families with autosomal recessive (AR) congenital sensorineural hearing loss. First, a fraction of the fetal DNA in mpDNA w...

The genes of the vertebrate -globin locus undergo a switch in expression during erythroid development whereby embryonic fetal genes of the cluster are sequentially silenced and adult genes are activated. We describe here a role for DNA methylation and MBD2 in the silencing of the human fetal -globin gene. The -globin gene is reactivated upon treatment with the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor 5-...