A mathematical model for evaluation of maternal cell contamination in cultured cells from spontaneous abortions: significance for cytogenetic analysis of prenatal selection factors.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a mathematical model for more precise estimation of the incidence of chromosomal abnormalities and the sex ratio among spontaneous abortions masked by maternal cell contamination. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis. SETTING: Academic medical center. PATIENT(S): One hundred twelve samples of spontaneous abortion with a "46,XX" karyotype and 97 parents with aborted embryos. INTERVENTION(S): The presence of Y chromosome DNA in native tissues of "46,XX" spontaneous abortions was detected by amelogenin locus analysis. Detection of aneuploidies in noncultured tissues of "46,XX" abortions was performed by microsatellite DNA analysis and confirmed by fluorescence in situ hybridization. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Accuracy of cytogenetic evaluation of spontaneous abortions. RESULT(S): Y chromosome DNA was revealed in 16% of the embryos with a "46,XX" karyotype. According to the mathematical model proposed, the frequency of chromosomal abnormalities in a sample of 478 abortions increased from 54.6% to 60.3%, and the sex ratio in embryos with normal karyotype changed from 0.66 to 1.02. The experimental validation of the model has shown that the observed and expected incidences of chromosomal abnormalities in "46,XX" abortions were in good agreement. CONCLUSION(S): Maternal cell contamination clearly affects the incidence of registered chromosomal abnormalities and the sex ratio in spontaneous abortions. Correction for maternal cell contamination should be taken into account before invoking biological explanations of sex ratio bias and might be useful to include in diagnostic reporting.

Features of chromosomal abnormalities in spontaneous abortion cell culture failures detected by interphase FISH analysis.

Cytogenetic analysis of reproductive wastage is an important stage in understanding the genetic background of early embryogenesis. The results of conventional cytogenetic studies of spontaneous abortions depend on tissue culturing and are associated with a significant cell culture failure rate. We performed interphase dual-colour FISH analysis to detect chromosomal abnormalities in noncultured cells from two different tissues-cytotrophoblast and extraembryonic mesoderm-of 60 first-trimester spontaneous abortions from which cells had failed to grow in culture. An original algorithm was proposed to optimize the interphase karyotype screening with a panel of centromere-specific DNA probes for all human chromosomes. The overall rate of numerical chromosomal abnormalities in these cells was 53%. Both typical and rare forms of karyotype imbalance were found. The observation of six cases (19%) of monosomy 7, 15, 21 and 22 in mosaic form, with a predominant normal cell line, was the most unexpected finding. Cell lines with monosomies 21 and 22 were found both in cytotrophoblast and mesoderm, while cells with monosomy 7 and 15 were confined to the cytotrophoblast. The tissue-specific compartmentalization of cell lines with autosomal monosomies provides evidence that the aneuploidy of different human chromosomes may arise during different stages of intrauterine development. The effect of aneuploidy on selection may differ, however, depending on the specific chromosome. The abortions also revealed a high frequency of intratissue chromosomal mosaicism (94%), in comparison with that detected by conventional cytogenetic analysis (29%; P<0.001). Confined placental mosaicism was found in 25% of the embryos. The results of molecular cytogenetic analysis of these cell culture failures illustrate that the diversity and phenotypic effects of chromosomal abnormalities during the early stages of human development are underestimated.