Fetal nucleated red blood cells in peripheral blood of pregnant women: detection and determination of location on a slide using laser‐scanning cytometry

Abstract

On the basis of automatic relocation of once-defined cells of fetal origin from the current pregnancy, laser-scanning cytometry is likely to facilitate repeated (poly-)FISH analysis and single-cell PCR for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis.

Efficiency of Manual Scanning in Recovering Rare Cellular Events Identified by FluorescenceIn SituHybridization: Simulation of the Detection of Fetal Cells in Maternal Blood

“…Evaluation of the efficiency of these automatic slide-scanning devices is mandatory before clinical implementation. Different investigators have already tried to validate automatic scanning devices for the detection of fluorescent signals of rare cellular events [1, 6, 22, 23]. When detection of extremely rare cellular events is required, an accurate evaluation is difficult to obtain.…”

Accurate Diagnosis of a Homozygous G1138A Mutation in the Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 3 Gene Responsible for Achondroplasia

“…Taken into consideration that today's technology even allows isolation of fetal nucleated red blood cells present in the maternal circulation (Hennerbichler et al 2003), it is possible to perform noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of single gene mutations such as achondroplasia at very early gestational ages. However, the very little yet very valuable DNA isolated for this type of diagnosis has to be analyzed by the best protocol available.…”

Harvesting Fetal Cells From the Maternal Circulation

“…The novel method used by Kitagawa et al 46 to extract nucleated red blood cells found only two male cells (fetal) for every millilitre of maternal blood. 94 Finally, cell sorts of low purity are laborious to analyse by FISH, and prone to error. 46 Using a CD 71 MACS-based protocol, Jansen et al 59 found that an average of 145 × 10 4 cells came through the sorting process per maternal sample.…”

“…Hennerbichler et al, 94 Embryonic Hb (haemoglobin-epsilon) is truly fetal-specific but unfortunately is completely replaced by HbF by 8-12 weeks gestation. Hennerbichler et al, 94 Embryonic Hb (haemoglobin-epsilon) is truly fetal-specific but unfortunately is completely replaced by HbF by 8-12 weeks gestation.…”

“…94,103,104 Unfortunately, these systems also have their limitations. This technology can acquire data from hundreds of cells in a short space of time and has already been applied to amniocentesis samples with great success.…”