Nanoparticle-Enhanced Surface Plasmon Resonance Imaging
Enables the Ultrasensitive Detection of Non-Amplified Cell-Free Fetal
DNA for Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing
posted on 2021-12-29, 16:03authored byMarzia Calcagno, Roberta D’Agata, Giulia Breveglieri, Monica Borgatti, Noemi Bellassai, Roberto Gambari, Giuseppe Spoto
Although many potential
applications in early clinical diagnosis
have been proposed, the use of a surface plasmon resonance imaging
(SPRI) technique for non-invasive prenatal diagnostic approaches based
on maternal blood analysis is confined. Here, we report a nanoparticle-enhanced
SPRI strategy for a non-invasive prenatal fetal sex determination
based on the detection of a Y-chromosome specific sequence (single-gene
SRY) in cell-free fetal DNA from maternal plasma. The SPR assay proposed
here allows for detection of male DNA in mixtures of 2.5 aM male and
female genomic DNAs with no preliminary amplification of the DNA target
sequence, thus establishing an analytical protocol that does not require
costly, time-consuming, and prone to sample contamination PCR-based
procedures. Afterward, the developed protocol was successfully applied
to reveal male cell-free fetal DNA in the plasma of pregnant women
at different gestational ages, including early gestational ages. This
approach would pave the way for the establishment of faster and cost-effective
non-invasive prenatal testing.