BACKGROUNDAlthough great advances in techniques for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis using fetal cells from maternal peripheral blood have achieved, current technology does not meet the demands required for clinical use. In this study, we aimed to establish reliable methods for the gene analysis of fetal cells from maternal peripheral blood.

METHODSPrimed extension preamplification (PEP)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR), multiple primed in situ labeling (PRINS), and nested PCR were individually applied to detect the sex determining region Y (SRY) gene in single fetal cells collected from maternal peripheral blood.

RESULTSThe sensitivity and specificity of the detection of the SRY gene by PEP-PCR were 97.39% (149/153) and 99.17% (119/120), respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of PRINS were 97.56% (40/41) and 100% (35/35), respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of nested-PCR were 80.00% (24/30) and 87.50% (14/16), respectively.

CONCLUSIONSPEP-PCR and PRINS are reliable techniques for the gene analysis of single fetal cells from maternal peripheral blood because of their high sensitivity and specificity. PEP-PCR and PRINS can be used as standard methods of noninvasive prenatal diagnosis using single fetal cells from maternal peripheral blood.