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A new and improved method of library preparation for non-invasive prenatal testing: plasma to library express technology

  • Meihong Ren , Guangxin Sun , Xiangsha Kong , Lin Zhang , Ying Ji , Huiying Rao , Liuyezi Du , Xiaohong Zhang EMAIL logo and Qixi Wu EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: January 31, 2023

Abstract

Objectives

This study aims to develop a novel library preparation method, plasma to library express technology (PLET), to construct next-generation sequencing (NGS) libraries directly from plasma without cell-free DNA (cfDNA) isolation.

Methods

Peripheral blood samples (600) were obtained from a retrospective cohort of 300 pregnant women prior to invasive diagnostic testing. The samples were subsequently distributed between library preparation methodologies, with 300 samples prepared by PLET and 300 by conventional methods for non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) to screen for common trisomies using low-pass whole genome next generation sequencing.

Results

NIPT conducted on PLET libraries demonstrated comparable metrics to libraries prepared using conventional methods, including 100% sensitivity and specificity.

Conclusions

Our study demonstrates the potential utility of PLET in the clinical setting and highlights its significant advantages, including dramatically reduced process complexity and markedly decreased turnaround time.


Corresponding authors: Xiaohong Zhang, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking University People’s Hospital, Beijing, P.R. China, Phone: +86-10-8832-4280, E-mail: ; and Qixi Wu, Beijing USCI Medical Laboratory Co Ltd, Beijing, P.R. China, Phone: +86-10-4006-881-555, E-mail:
Meihong Ren and Guangxin Sun contributed equally to this work.

Funding source: Beijing Natural Science Foundation

Award Identifier / Grant number: No. 7222240

Acknowledgments

We thank all patients for consenting to participate. We also thank Catherine Perfect, MA (Cantab), from Liwen Bianji (Edanz) (www.liwenbianji.cn), for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.

  1. Research funding: This research was supported by Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. 7222240).

  2. Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: The authors declare that there is no known competing financial interests.

  4. Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.

  5. Ethical approval: The local Institutional Review Board deemed the study exempt from review.

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Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2022-0283).


Received: 2022-03-23
Accepted: 2022-12-12
Published Online: 2023-01-31
Published in Print: 2023-05-25

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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