Investigation of fetal cells isolated from maternal blood by different methods

: This paper presents the results of investigation of the isolated from maternal blood by 4 different methods according to the optimized protocols. All women had male fetuses. The mononuclear cells with fetal erythroblasts were preisolated by using density-gradient centrifugation of the maternal blood in the Ficoll solution. Fetal cells were detected by FISH for Y-chromosomal sequences. The fetal cells were 2.1% by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS); 3.8% by magnetic field sorting, and 2.6% by two-stage density gradient precipitation. The fetal lymphocytes were investigated through air-cultivation of peripheral maternal lymphocytes. Their proportion was 3.9% in the culture samples. The findings lead to the conclusion that the new non-invasive approach is useful for prenatal diagnosis of chromosomal aneuploidies.