Rapid prenatal diagnosis of numerical aberrations of chromosome 21 and 18 by PCR-STR method

In this study we reported the results for the first time of applying Polymerase Chain Reaction-Short Tandem Repeats (PCR-STR) method in the field of detection of aneuploidies for chromosomes 21 and 18 in Croatians. The aims of the study were: (I) validation of the diagnostic informativeness of 6 STR loci (D18S51, D18S858, D18S535, D21S1435, D21S1411, and D21S1414) in sample of 205 unrelated healthy individuals; (II) evaluation of diagnostic power of the PCR-STR method for those 6 microsatellites; (III) establishment protocol for use STRs as routine method for rapid prenatal detection of trisomy 21 and 18. DNA samples were amplified by fluorescence-based PCR reaction, subjected to electrophoresis in automated laser fluorescence DNA sequencer (ALFexpress). Results of our study were: (I) all 6 tested loci are informative (68-85% of heterozygous individuals); (II) comparison between PCR-STR method and conventional cytogenetics did not revealed any false positive or false negative results; (III) in prenatal screening of 105 samples of uncultured amniotic fluid 6 (5.7%) samples with chromosomal abnormalities were identified.