Microarray-Based Method to Analyze DNA Methylation of maternal Plasma in Pregnant Women

摘要

The discovery of fetal DNA in maternal plasma ofpregnant women made non-invasive prenatal diagnosis possible and it had made great progress during the past several years.We attempted to develop a microarray based high-throughput method,which could be used for analyzing the methylation status of many different genes simultaneously.In this present study,12 peripheral blood samples of pregnant women and 5 from non-pregnant healthy women have been collected.The genomic DNA was extracted and bisuifite treated.DNA microarrays were designed and fabricated to analyze the methylation status of a group of CpG sites in the promoter region of each gene (CDH,GABA,RASS and MGMT).The results showed that the method developed could be used to differentiate the methylation status reliably.No significant methylation differences were found in the plasma DNA between pregnant women and control except one site in RASS and one site in MGMT.It is suggested that DNA methylation could be used as a potential universal marker for non-invasive prenatal diagnosis.