Potential of Nanopore Long Read Sequencing for Determining CTG Repeat Lengths in the DMPK1 Gene During Prenatal or...

Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is an autosomal dominant neurodevelopmental disorder caused by CTG repeat expansion in the DMPK gene. Although the clinical classification of DM1 is determined by the CTG repeat length in DMPK, conventional sizing relies on Southern blotting, which is a suboptimal method in prenatal and PGD contexts as it requires large amounts of genomic DNA. We here evaluated the utility of nanopore long read sequencing (LRS) for DM1 diagnosis in these contexts.

LRS was performed with adaptive sampling or CRISPR/Cas9-mediated enrichment targeting DMPK. The use of whole genome amplified DNA (WGA-DNA) prepared with RepliG was also assessed.

Adaptive sampling and Cas9-based LRS enabled detection of both the normal and expanded alleles. Further, LRS with CRISPR/Cas9-mediated enrichment improved efficiency and enabled accurate sizing of expanded CTG repeats exceeding 1000 units. In contrast, the use of whole genome amplified DNA prepared with RepliG did not permit reliable CTG repeat sizing, even when combined with adaptive sampling or CRISPR/Cas9.

Nanopore sequencing can potentially replace Southern blotting for prenatal DM1 diagnosis, including repeat sizing. However, further improvement is needed for PGD using WGA-DNA.