18.02.05 Copy number detection Flashcards
Give an overview of G-banding and it’s use.
Manipulation of cell cycle to obtain metaphase cells enabling comparison of banding pattern between homologues
- To detect pre/postnatal aneuploidy
- To detect unbalanced rearrangements in dysmorphic child
- To detect balanced rearrangements in recurrent miscarriage couple
- Detection of abnormal clones in cancer
- Detect clinically significant structural rearrangementse.g. t(15;17) in APL
What are the advantages of G-banding?
- Whole genome screen
- Detects balanced/unbalanced rearrangements
- Provides positional information
- Detects mosaicism
- Relatively robust and inexpensive
- Determine structural rearrangements e.g. ring chr 20
What are the disadvantages of G-banding?
- Low resolution (>5Mb)
- Labour intensive
- Slow turnaround time
- Unable to detect UPD
- Requires dividing cells and manipulation of the cell cycle
- Risk of cultural artefacts e.g. prenatal cases
- Some abnormalities (usually mosaic aneuploidies) not detected in cultured cells
Give an overview of FISH.
Fluorescently labelled ssDNA probes are hybridised to specific denatured DNA sequences (metaphase spreads or interphase nuclei); centromere, telomere, locus-specific, whole chromosome paint or BACs
What are the advantages of FISH?
- Positional information if metaphases analysed
- Detects mosaicism
- Detects ploidy
- Aids interpretation of G-banding
- Fast turnaround time
- Higher resolution than G-banding
- Large number of individual cells can be examined
- Can be used to analyse single cells
- Probes available for almost any genomic region
What are the disadvantages of FISH?
- Targeted test
- Probes can be expensive
- Cannot detect MCC in certain cases
- Cannot detect UPD
- Limited number of probes can be used at one time, only 2 or 3 colours possible
- Interphase FISH provides no positional info
- May require metaphases
- Atypical rearrangements may be normal by FISH e.g. some t(15;17) arrangements
- Microdups may be undetected due to limited resolution on metaphase spread
- Co-localisation can occur: two signals overlap and appear as one
- Cross-hybridisation can occur: probe binds to regions with repetitive sequences
What are the applications of FISH?
- Aneuploidy screen
- Microdeletion/duplication detection
- Aid G-banding e.g.origin of marker chr
- Detection of cryptic rearrangements e.g.t(12;21) in cancer
- Used if G-banding fails e.g. AML screen using disease specific probes
- Detection of mosaicism
- Detection of abnormal clones/clonal evolution in cancer
- Gene amplification e.g. HER2 in br. Ca. or N-MYC in neuroblastoma
- Gene deletions e.g. TP53 or ATM
- PGD
- Variant gene fusionse.g. BCR-ABL1 in CML
- Post-transplant chimaerism monitoring
Give an overview of SKY/M-FISH/CGH and its potential applications.
Techniques enable the fluorescent labelling of the whole genome. Each chromosome is labelled with a different mix of fluorophores to give each chromosome a different colour
Can be used to aid interpretation of G-banding e.g. identification of marker chromosomes or interpretation of complex rearrangements
What are the advantages and disadvantages of SKY/M-FISH/CGH?
Adv
- Whole genome screen
- Detects balanced/unbalanced rearrangements
- Provides structural/positional information
Disadv
- Low resolution (~5Mb)
- Requires cell culture and manipulation to obtain good quality metaphases
- Expensive (therefore not widely used)
- Highly labour intensive
Give an overview of QF-PCR and its potential applications.
Quantification of polymorphic repeat sequences to determine copy number. Uses fluorescently labelled primers
- Prenatal aneuploidy screening
- Detection of trisomy in pregnancy loss or PND
- Post-transplant chimaerism monitoring
What are the advantages of QF-PCR?
- Detects mosaicism (above 15%), triploidy and aneuploidy
- Requires little starting material
- Fast turnaround times
- Relatively inexpensive
- High resolution/High through-put
What are the disadvantages of QF-PCR?
- No positional information obtained
- Targeted test
- MCC may prevent interpretation of results
- May not detect low-level mosaicism (<15%)
- Limited ability to detect multiple targets in a single assay due to spectral overlap of dyes
Give an overview of real-time PCR.
PCR amplification in which the amount of productis measured during each PCR cycle. Uses fluorescent dyes (non-specific e.g. SYBR green) or probes (sequence specific e.g. Taqman). During the exponential phase the amount of amplified product is proportional to the amount of starting material.
What are the advantages of real-time PCR?
- Quantitative
- Very high resolution
- Rapid and easy to perform
- Fast turnaround time
- Requires little starting material
- Single cell analysis possible
- Detects UPD if methylation specific Res are used
- Post-PCR processing is eliminated, reducing labour, cost and possibility of cross-contamination
What are the disadvantages of real-time PCR?
- No positional information obtained
- Targeted test
- Specialist equipment required – thermal cycler and optical instrument to measure fluorescence
- Unlikely to detect low level mosaicism
- Multiple reactions required to examine multiple loci
- Sequence-specific probes expensive
- Non-specific fluorescent dyes such as a SYBR green intercalate with any dsDNA which may lead to false positive signals