Zhu Haiyan, Hu Yali, Li Jie, Yang Ying, Wu Xing
Prenatal Diagnosis Center, the Affiliated Drumtower Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine,Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210008 P.R.China.
Zhonghua Yi Xue Yi Chuan Xue Za Zhi. 2010 Feb;27(1):38-41. doi: 10.3760/cma.j.issn.1003-9406.2010.01.008.
To study the application of the multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) method in genetic and prenatal diagnosis for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).
Four patients, 16 parents and 4 fetuses from 8 SMA pedigrees were included. MLPA was performed for molecular analysis, and polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used for the mutation detection of the 4 patients.
For all the four patients, the same homozygous deletion of the exons 7 and 8 of the survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene, was detected by PCR-RFLP and MLPA. All fourteen parents from the 8 pedigrees were carriers of the SMN1 gene heterozygous deletion, except the mothers in pedigrees 1 and 4 in whom the mutations were different.
MLPA is a simple and efficient quantitative method for copy number analysis of the SMN genes. It can be used for the genetic diagnosis and prenatal diagnosis of the SMA patients and carriers.
