A research team from China has developed a new technique that allows doctors involved in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment to more easily weed out embryos with genetic defects prior to fertilization and implantation of a zygote into a host uterus.
Couples, that have trouble conceiving a child, turn to doctors for help. In some cases, one option is IVF, where an egg is surgically removed from the mother-to-be, and sperm is obtained from the father to be, or a stand-in. The results are mixed in a lab, and if the egg becomes fertilized, it is implanted into the uterus of the mother, or a suitable stand-in.
However, sometimes the process doesn't go as planned. The couple fails to have a baby. The odds diminish as the age of the mother donating the egg reaches over forty, due to a chromosomal aneuploidy, where the number of chromosomes is unnormal. Other problems may caused by gene mutations from either parent or gene deletion.
For years, researchers have developed multiple methods to check for aneuploidy or gene mutations. However, there has been no test to check for both at one time. This is very important, because testing can be hard on an embryo, causing other problems.
In the new research, the investigators have developed a technique to test for both. It is named mutated allele revealed by sequencing with aneuploidy and linkage analyses, which is a next generation sequencing method for single-cell genome amplification that involves multiple heating/cooling and looped-based amplification cycles.
The method has been tried successfully on two different couples, one where the father had a gene abnormality that caused bone spurs, and the other, where the mother had a gene mutation that caused skin and sweat problems. The investigators could successfully weed out the embryos that carried the gene mutations, enabling both couples to have babies without their parents' maladies.
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