Preimplantation genetic diagnosis using fluorescent polymerase chain reaction: results and future developments.
OBJECTIVE
Fluorescent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a multipurpose technique that can be used for diagnosing sex, single-gene defects, and trisomies as well as determining DNA fingerprints from single cells. However, its effectiveness must be assessed before clinical preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) application.


METHODS
Single and multiplex fluorescent PCR was applied to single cells and blastomeres.


RESULTS
Fluorescent PCR can be used to diagnose sex from blastomeres and has been successfully applied in a clinical PGD sexing program resulting in a confirmed pregnancy. A further major advantage of fluorescent PCR is the ability to multiplex, providing multiple diagnoses and DNA fingerprints with a high reliability (approximately 75% for trisomy, 86% for DNA fingerprint) and good accuracy (70-80%). Allele dropout in multiplex PCR is approximately 20% per allele and does not appear to be associated with the fragment size.


CONCLUSIONS
Fluorescent PCR is a powerful technique for PGD, and the effects of allele dropout must be considered, particularly in multiplex PCR.
Findlay
I
I
Institute of Pathology, Algernon Firth Building, Leeds University, UK.
Matthews
P
P
Quirke
P
P
D001757:Blastomeres / Q000166:cytology; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D011247:Pregnancy; D019836:Preimplantation Diagnosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D019849:Sex Determination Processes