Haiping Wu

Sensitive and specific colorimetric DNA detection by invasive reaction coupled with nicking endonuclease-assisted nanoparticles amplification

Colorimetric DNA detection is preferable to methods in clinical molecular diagnostics, because no expensive equipment is required. Although many gold nanoparticle-based colorimetric DNA detection strategies have been developed to analyze DNA sequences of interest, few of them can detect somatic mutations due to their insufficient specificity. In this study, we proposed a colorimetric DNA detection method by coupling invasive reaction with nicking endonuclease-assisted nanoparticles amplification (IR-NEANA). A target DNA firstly produces many flaps by invasive reaction. Then the flaps are converted to targets of nicking reaction-assisted nanoparticles amplification by ligation reaction to produce the color change of AuNPs, which can be observed by naked eyes. The detection limit of IR-NEANA was determined as 1pM. Most importantly, the specificity of the method is high enough to pick up as low as 1% mutant from a large amount of wild-type DNA backgrounds. The EGFR gene mutated at c.2573 T>G in 9 tissue samples from non-small cell lung cancer patients were successfully detected by using IR-NEANA, suggesting that our proposed method can be used to detect somatic mutations in biological samples.

Digital detection of multiple minority mutants in stool DNA for noninvasive colorectal cancer diagnosis.

Somatic mutations in stool DNA are quite specific to colorectal cancer (CRC), but a method being able to detect the extraordinarily low amounts of mutants is challengeable in sensitivity. We proposed a hydrogel bead-array to digitally count CRC-specific mutants in stool at a low cost. At first, multiplex amplification of targets containing multiple mutation loci of interest is carried out by a target enriched multiplex PCR (Tem-PCR), yielding the templates qualified for emulsion PCR (emPCR). Then, after immobilizing the beads from emPCR on a glass surface, the incorporation of Cy3-dUTP into the mutant-specific probes, which are specifically hybridized with the amplified beads from emPCR, is used to color the beads coated with mutants. As all amplified beads are hybridized with the Cy5-labeled universal probe, a mutation rate is readily obtained by digitally counting the beads with different colors (yellow and red). A high specificity of the method is achieved by removing the mismatched probes in a bead-array with electrophoresis. The approach has been used to simultaneously detect 8 mutation loci within the APC, TP53, and KRAS genes in stools from eight CRC patients, and 50% of CRC patients were positively diagnosed; therefore, our method can be a potential tool for the noninvasive diagnosis of CRC.

Pyrosequencing-based barcodes for a dye-free multiplex bioassay

A novel dye-free labeling method for a multiplex bioassay was proposed by using short sequence-based barcodes consisting of a reporter base and repeats of two stuffer bases; then, the barcodes were quantitatively decoded by a single pyrosequencing assay without any pre-separation.

Assessing Fungal Population in Soil Planted with Cry1Ac and CPTI Transgenic Cotton and Its Conventional Parental Line Using 18S and ITS rDNA Sequences over Four Seasons.

Long-term growth of genetically modified plants (GMPs) has raised concerns regarding their ecological effects. Here, FLX-pyrosequencing of region I (18S) and region II (ITS1, 5.8S, and ITS2) rDNA was used to characterize fungal communities in soil samples after 10-year monoculture of one representative transgenic cotton line (TC-10) and 15-year plantation of various transgenic cotton cultivars (TC-15mix) over four seasons. Soil fungal communities in the rhizosphere of non-transgenic control (CC) were also compared. No notable differences were observed in soil fertility variables among CC, TC-10, and TC-15mix. Within seasons, the different estimations were statistically indistinguishable. There were 411 and 2 067 fungal operational taxonomic units in the two regions, respectively. More than 75% of fungal taxa were stable in both CC and TC except for individual taxa with significantly different abundance between TC and CC. Statistical analysis revealed no significant differences between CC and TC-10, while discrimination of separating TC-15mix from CC and TC-10 with 37.86% explained variance in PCoA and a significant difference of Shannon indexes between TC-10 and TC-15mix were observed in region II. As TC-15mix planted with a mixture of transgenic cottons (Zhongmian-29, 30, and 33B) for over 5 years, different genetic modifications may introduce variations in fungal diversity. Further clarification is necessary by detecting the fungal dynamic changes in sites planted in monoculture of various transgenic cottons. Overall, we conclude that monoculture of one representative transgenic cotton cultivar may have no effect on fungal diversity compared with conventional cotton. Furthermore, the choice of amplified region and methodology has potential to affect the outcome of the comparison between GM-crop and its parental line.

Prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21, 18 and 13 by quantitative pyrosequencing of segmental duplications

Chromosomal aberration mostly occurs in chromosomes 21, 18 and 13, with an incidence approximately 1 out of 160 live births in humans, therefore making prenatal diagnosis necessary in clinics. Current methods have drawbacks such as time consuming, high cost, complicated operations and low sensitivity. In this paper, a novel method for rapid and accurate prenatal diagnosis of aneuploidy is proposed based on pyrosequencing, which quantitatively detects the peak height ratio (PHR) of different bases of segmental duplication. A direct polymerase chain reaction (PCR) approach was undertaken, where a small volume of amniotic fluid was used as the starting material without DNA extraction. Single‐stranded DNA was prepared from PCR products and subsequently analyzed using pyrosequencing. The PHR between target and reference chromosome of 2.2 for euploid and 3:2 for a trisomy fetus were used as reference. The reference intervals and z scores were calculated for discrimination of aneuploidy. A total of 132 samples were collected, within trisomy 21 (n = 11), trisomy 18 (n = 3), trisomy 13 (n = 2), and unaffected controls (n = 116). A set of six segmental duplications were chosen for analysis. This method had consistent results with karyotyping analysis, a correct diagnosis with 100% sensitivity and 99.9% specificity.

Multiplex PCR based on a universal biotinylated primer to generate templates for pyrosequencing.

Pyrosequencing is a powerful tool widely used in genetic analysis, however template preparation prior to pyrosequencing is still costly and time-consuming. To achieve an inexpensive and labor-saving template preparation for pyrosequencing, we have successfully developed a single-tube multiplex PCR including a pre-amplification and a universal amplification. In the process of pre-amplification, a low concentration of target-specific primers tagged with universal ends introduced universal priming regions into amplicons. In the process of universal amplification, a high concentration of universal primers was used for yielding amplicons with various SNPs of interest. As only a universal biotinylated primer and one step of single-stranded DNA preparation were required for typing multiple SNPs located on different sequences, pyrosequencing-based genotyping became time-saving, labor-saving, sample-saving, and cost-saving. By a simple optimization of multiplex PCR condition, only a 4-plex and a 3-plex PCR were required for typing 7 SNPs related to tamoxifen metabolism. Further study showed that pyrosequencing coupled with an improved multiplex PCR protocol allowed around 30% decrease of either typing cost or typing labor. Considering the biotinylated primer and the optimized condition of the multiplex PCR are independent of SNP locus, it is easy to use the same condition and the identical biotinylated primer for typing other SNPs. The preliminary typing results of the 7 SNPs in 11 samples demonstrated that multiplex PCR-based pyrosequencing could be promising in personalized medicine at a low cost.

A pyrosequencing-based method for genotyping pathogenic serotypes of S. suis

Streptococcus suis (S. suis for short) can cause a variety of infections in pigs, and the infections have brought about great losses in the swine industry and some cases of deaths in human beings. In order to rapidly diagnose and control the infections of S. suis, we designed a pyrosequencing-based assay to identify the serotypes of S. suis. In the assay, pyrosequencing is used to genotype most of the pathogenic serotypes of S. suis by detecting five informative regions on the Chaperonin 60 (cpn60) gene and one species-specific region on the 16S rRNA gene, and further a few undistinguished serotypes by pyrosequencing were finely discriminated by multiplex PCR of serotype-specific fragments on the cpsgene as well as species-specific fragments on the 16S rRNA gene. Through carefully designing the dispensing order of dNTP for each pyrosequencing reaction, the serotypes of S. suis could be discriminated by four pyrosequencing reactions within three hours. Five reference serotypes and three clinical strains were successfully detected and genotyped by our assay. The results indicated that our assay is a reliable, information-rich diagnostic method for the accurate detection ofS. suis serotypes.

Non-invasive prenatal detection of trisomy 21 by quantifying segmental duplication in maternal plasma with digital PCR

Non-invasive detection of trisomy 21 is a safe and effective way for prenatal diagnosis. Although using next generation sequencing technology can achieve non-invasive detection of chromosomal abnormalities, a more convenient and cost-effective method is preferable for routine clinical applications. Here, we proposed a novel method for the detection of trisomy 21 by accurately quantifying the slightly increased amount of chromosome 21 in cell-free DNA from maternal plasma using digital PCR. The segmental duplication fragments on chromosome 21 and chromosome 1 were employed as the detection target of digital PCR. As low as 10% cell-free fetal DNA of trisomy 21 fetus in maternal cell-free DNA was successfully detected. Three trisomy 21 samples were unambiguously picked up from 15 clinical samples, indicating that our method has the potential for non-invasive diagnosis of trisomy 21.

Prenatal Diagnosis of Chromosomal Aneuploidies by Quantitative Pyrosequencing

One of the major reasons for pregnant women to ask for prenatal diagnosis is to detect fetal chromosomal aneuploidies. Analysis of allele ratios of SNPs has been used for prenatal detection of fetal aneuploidies using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry (MS). However, quantitative SNP genotyping by MALDI-TOF MS is challenging. To obtain a better quantification of allelic ratios, a Pyrosequencing(®) protocol for SNP genotyping has been developed to perform prenatal diagnosis of aneuploidies.To avoid the laborious process and risk of cross-contamination brought in by DNA extraction procedures, a PCR assay, which can amplify DNA directly from cells in amniotic fluid, has been developed. Pre-amplification steps such as cell enrichment and heating are required to obtain sufficient amounts of amplification products.In this chapter, SNPs on chromosome 21 are used to detect trisomy 21 as an example of aneuploidy by quantifying the allele ratio using Pyrosequencing. Primer selection for PCRs and Pyrosequencing reactions, optimization of nucleotide dispensation orders, establishment of cutoff values for trisomy 21, and interpretation of data are all factors essential for a successful diagnosis and are discussed in detail herein.

A simplified pyrosequencing protocol based on linear-after-the-exponential (LATE)-PCR using whole blood as the starting material directly

Pyrosequencing has been one of the most commonly used methods for genotyping; however, generally it needs single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) preparation from PCR amplicons as well as purified genomic DNA extraction from whole blood. To simplify the process of a pyrosequencing protocol, we proposed an improved linear-after-the-exponential (LATE)-PCR by employing whole blood as the starting material. A successful LATE-PCR was achieved by using a common Taq DNA polymerase in high pH buffer (HpH-buffer). As amplicons from LATE-PCR contain a large amount of ssDNA, pyrosequencing can be performed on the amplicons directly. Since DNA extraction and ssDNA preparation are omitted, the labor, cost and cross-contamination risk is decreased compared to conventional pyrosequencing-based genotyping protocols. The results for typing three polymorphisms related to personalized medicine of fluorouracil indicate that the proposed whole-blood LATE-PCR can be well coupled with pyrosequencing, thus becoming a potential tool in personalized medicine.