Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis by genome-wide haplotyping of maternal cell-free plasma DNA

Whereas non-invasive prenatal testing for aneuploidies (NIPT-A) is widely implemented, non-invasive prenatal testing for monogenic diseases (NIPT-M) is lagging. By capturing and targeted sequencing of 250000 polymorphic SNP loci from maternal plasma circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and DNA from relatives, the fetal haplotype and chromosomal copy numbers are deduced. In all families tested, the cfDNA derived haplotypes are on average 97% concordant with the neonatal and embryo haplotype. This generic non-invasive prenatal diagnostic approach allows cost efficient scrutinizing the fetal genome for the presence of any inherited monogenic disease or trait.EGA study EGAS00001003634