Enrichment of circulating trophoblasts from maternal blood using laminar microscale vortices.
OBJECTIVE
Enrichment of circulating trophoblasts (CTs) from maternal blood at week 11-13 of gestation, using laminar microscale vortices, and evaluation of the performance of the VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System in terms of CT recovery and purity.


METHOD
Eight mililiter of blood was collected from 15 pregnant women and processed with the VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System. Y-chromosome specific quantitative PCR was performed to estimate the number of enriched male CTs. To evaluate the VTX-1 performance, the target cell recovery was characterized by spiking experiments with a trophoblast cell line. Furthermore, the total quantity of DNA after enrichment was used to calculate the number of retained maternal cells.


RESULTS
Successful recovery of male CTs was established in 7 out of 10 first trimester samples from pregnant women carrying a male fetus. The number of CTs, recovered from 8 ml of blood, was estimated between two and six. Spiking experiments resulted in a CT recovery of ±35 % with ±1524 retained maternal blood cells.


CONCLUSION
CTs can be enriched from maternal blood with high purity, using laminar microscale vortices, starting from 8 ml of blood.
['Vander Plaetsen|Ann-Sophie|AS|https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3362-7809', 'Weymaere|Jana|J|https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8213-1973', 'Tytgat|Olivier|O|https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1788-5963', 'Buyle|Magaly|M|', 'Deforce|Dieter|D|https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0635-661X', 'Van Nieuwerburgh|Filip|F|https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8815-5485']
Cell-free DNA < fetal cells, nucle Y-chromosome STR analysis Y-chromosome qPCR ic acids & proteins noninvasive prenatal testing < fetal cells, nucleic acids & proteins prenatal diagnosis, fetal cells < fetal cells, nucleic acids & proteins size-based enrichment