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Clinical Chemistry 47: 1577-1578, 2001;
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(Clinical Chemistry. 2001;47:1577-1578.)
© 2001 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Editorial

Quantification of Circulating DNA: In the Preparation Lies the Rub

Sinuhe Hahna1, Xiao Yan Zhong1 and Wolfgang Holzgreve1

1 Laboratory for Prenatal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Basel, CH 4031 Basel, Switzerland

aAddress correspondence to this author at: Laboratory for Prenatal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Basel, Schanzenstrasse 46, CH 4031 Basel, Switzerland. Fax 41-61-325-9399; e-mail shahn@uhbs.ch.

Although cell-free nucleic acids were first described in the 1940s (1), it was not until tumor-specific DNA sequences were detected in the plasma of cancer patients (2) that they started to attract the interest of the wider scientific community. Because the placenta shares numerous features with malignant tissues, such as a high rate of cell turnover and the expression of certain protooncogenes, these seminal reports prompted Lo and colleagues to examine whether fetal DNA could be detected in an analogous manner in the plasma of pregnant women. This hypothesis indeed proved to be true, and in 1997 Lo et al. (3) described the presence of fetal DNA circulating in maternal plasma and serum. This observation has been one of the most important for those attempting to develop safe and efficacious methods for prenatal diagnosis of fetal genetic traits. The reason for this interest is that current methods of obtaining fetal material for prenatal diagnosis rely on invasive procedures such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling, both of which are associated with a procedure-related fetal loss rate of almost 1% (4). Although concerted efforts had been made to develop noninvasive, and hence risk-free, alternative prenatal diagnostic methods using fetal cells enriched from the blood of pregnant women, . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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The following articles in journals at HighWire Press have cited this article:


Home page
 Clin. Chem.Home page
S. K. R. Chinnapapagari, W. Holzgreve, O. Lapaire, B. Zimmermann, and S. Hahn
Treatment of Maternal Blood Samples with Formaldehyde Does Not Alter the Proportion of Circulatory Fetal Nucleic Acids (DNA and mRNA) in Maternal Plasma
Clin. Chem., March 1, 2005; 51(3): 652 - 655.
[Full Text] [PDF]

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 Mol Hum ReprodHome page
X. Y. Zhong, W. Holzgreve, and S. Hahn
Cell-free fetal DNA in the maternal circulation does not stem from the transplacental passage of fetal erythroblasts
Mol. Hum. Reprod., September 1, 2002; 8(9): 864 - 870.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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