Fetal microchimerism and prenatal diagnostic of genetic disorders

Abstract

It is often require an invasive diagnosis based on karyotyping of cells from amniotic fluid, chorionic villi and cord blood in case of the fetus pathologies during pregnancy. The performance of these procedures has a risk of pregnancy complications or procedure-induced miscarriage. Therefore the investigators have nowadays been developing several approaches which would be capable to replace invasive diagnosis by alternative and safe non-invasive methods for detection of possible pregnancy pathology. Fetal microchimerism phenomenon and reliable strategies of fetal cells enrichment during early embryogenesis are reviewed. Fetal cells circulating in the peripheral blood of pregnant women has been described as a potential source of fetus genetic material in non-invasive prenatal diagnosis for chromosomal aberrations.